Sufis Quotes

Saying of the ProphetPrivacyWhoever invades people´s privacy corrupts them.

I am an idol worshipper; for I understand what idol worship means, and the idolater does not.

Forms have changed through the centuries in obedience to the external world to which all forms belong.

The Path is not to be found anywhere except in human service

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMIWhen we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaCommunity: Irrationals unified by hope of the impossible.

Generosity is also marked by doing what one says one will do.

But the Sufis work IN the world, and therefore WITH 'things of the world'.

Not a believer in the mosque am I,Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.I am not the pure amongst the impure,I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in the holy books am I,Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine,Nor do I live in a drunken haze,Nor in sleep or waking known.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found.I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground.Not of water nor of land,Nor am I in air or fire to be found.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not an Arab nor Lahori,Not a Hindi or Nagouri,Nor a Muslim or Peshawari,Not a Buddhist or a Christian.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Secrets of religion have I not unravelled,I am not of Eve and Adam.Neither still nor moving on,I have not chosen my own name!Bulleh, I know not who I am.From first to last, I searched myself.None other did I succeed in knowing.Not some great thinker am I.Who is standing in my shoes, alone?Bulleh, I know not who I am.

If you have no troubles – buy a goat.

The would-be students wish to transcend books.But, ask yourselves: if someone says that books do not contain wisdom, and yet he writes books; books do not contain Sufism, and yet he continues to publish books on Sufism, what is really happening? It really is your duty, and not mine, to ask and to find the answer to that question, if you are interested enough.

There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaFlattery:One of the most promising of businesses: always brisk.

Saying of the ProphetSome behaviourI am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it.

The door of illumination is open to those for whom other doors are closed.

Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow.

Trust is needed before lessons can be learnt.

Knowledge cannot be attained except through humility.

Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.

Show a man too many camels' bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)

The significance of the dwelling is in the dweller.

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. “The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.

Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years’ time.

You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.

You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude.

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real

You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed

None should say: ‘I can trust,’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

Whoever might perfume a scorpionWill not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband

Saying of the ProphetReflectionThe Faithful are mirrors, one to the other.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaEmotionalist:A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine.

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one.

Saying of the ProphetLoveDo you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.

Take the straight path, even if it is long: marry no widow, even if she is a houri.

Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.

The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

Saying of the ProphetUnderstandingSpeak to everyone in accordance with his degree of understanding.

The Sufis say, "This is not a religion; it is religion

People talk about ‘service, effort, love, knowledge’. But with knowledge you know what love is, and what it is not.

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

Words, they say, are the food of minds. But, like other foods, they can do little by themselves.

Sufism expresses what I have found to be Real.

In a village where everyone has only one leg, the biped will hop about more lamely than anyone else, if he knows what is good for him.

Saying of the ProphetPracticeWho are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know.

No surgeon can treat the wounds of the tongue.

Proverbs and truisms are for this reason dangerous, because they produce blindness or non-thought.

The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted, not to leave unaltered traces.

Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual leader Jelalludin Rumi during the early 1990s when the unparalleled lyrical grace, philosophical brilliance, and spiritual daring of his work took modern Western readers completely by surprise. The impact of its soulful beauty and the depth of its profound humanity were so intense that they reportedly prompted numerous individuals to spontaneously compose poetry.

Before the antidote arrives from Iraq The man with snake-bite will be dead.

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction. A human being may be clinically alive and yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead.

If you assume that it is there, you will generally not be far off the truth.

Of whom can we think well when it is believed that if nothing bad is done to you, this has been a kindness?

My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought.Learn to use your eyes as if they are your ears, he said, and you become connected with the ancient heritage of man, a dream world for the waking mind.

Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience and you will know'.

Knowledge gives nothing to a man until he gives everything to it.

Humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practise.

He who is fortunately enlightened [the Sufi]Knows that sophistry is from the devil and love from Adam.