Topic: Idries Shah

[nichi]

Ajnabi said: "The people of this world are insane." He promised his disciples to give them evidence of this. That same night he invited a rich man to break the fast with him. The man came and they ate dry bread and a date apiece, which was all that Ajnabi had in the house.

When he returned home, the rich man sent the Sufi a purse containing ten thousand dinars. Ajanbi sent it back with a note saying, "Bread can be eaten, gold is not useful for anything--people only imagine that it is."

Now he called a needy man and sent him to the rich man's house to ask for ten thousand dinars. When the man came back, Ajnabi said, "What did he say?" The needy man said: "He told me that he would not give me anything."

The Ajnabi told his disciples: "The people of this world are assuredly insane. They think that gold is equal to bread, and even exchange one for the other. Then, when they see an honest and necessitous man, they imagine that it is in their own interests not to help him. If these people are sane, as they believe themselves to be, let us all hasten into what they would call insanity."

as collected by Idries Shah

[nichi]

Mulla Nasrudin was very ill, and everyone thought that he was going to die. His wife dressed in mourning clothes and started to weep and wail. Mulla Nasrudin alone was unperturbed.

"Mulla," asked one of his disciples, "how is it that you can face death with such calm, even laughing for time to time, while we who are not going to die are in torment lest you leave us?"

"Quite simple," said Nasrudin. "As I lie here looking at the lot of you, I say to myself, 'They all look so terrible that I am almost sure the Angel of Death will mistake one of them for his prey when he comes visiting--and leave old Nasrudin here a while longer...'"


as collected by Idries Shah
 

[nichi]

A dervish went to a Sufi master and said: "Noble Guide, I wish to learn from you whatever I can communicate to others."

The Sufi told him to go into the garden and to feed birds and animals until they came to him whenever he appeared. The dervish did this for three years. At the end of this time he went back to the Sufi and said: "The birds and animals come to me whenever I show myself to them."

The Sufi said: "Do you still want to learn in order to impart to others?"

The dervish replied: "I have realized that I must learn whatever I can learn, and not to try to learn for a purpose until I know the value of the purpose."

The Sufi said: "Now you can start to learn. Unless your attention had been fixed upon the birds and animals, your real mind would not have been able to solve this problem of understanding. Attention demands an object, as an arrow demands a target. But to have an arrow in a target all the time, or to have all targets full of arrows, or to have every bowman shooting at once, or to have people thinking that shooting is necessary when they have other things which they can do and be, is evidence of stupidity and a sure road to oblivion."

as collected by Idries Shah

[Michael]

Mulla Nasrudin was very ill, and everyone thought that he was going to die. His wife dressed in mourning clothes and started to weep and wail. Mulla Nasrudin alone was unperturbed.

"Mulla," asked one of his disciples, "how is it that you can face death with such calm, even laughing for time to time, while we who are not going to die are in torment lest you leave us?"

"Quite simple," said Nasrudin. "As I lie here looking at the lot of you, I say to myself, 'They all look so terrible that I am almost sure the Angel of Death will mistake one of them for his prey when he comes visiting--and leave old Nasrudin here a while longer...'"

true true, too true

[TIOTIT]

One of the most wise women ever born was Rabia Al-Adawia. She was a Sufi, a great mystic, incomparable; she was sitting inside her hut with closed eyes doing something -- nobody knows what. Another mystic of the name of Hassan was staying with her, and it was morning, and the sun started coming up, and it was tremendously beautiful, with the birds singing and the trees happy again to see the light and the whole world celebrating the morn. Hassan stood there, then he called Rabia saying: Rabia, come out! See the glory of God! What a beautiful morning! Rabia said: Hassan, rather on the contrary, you come in and see God himself. THERE I know is beauty, the beauty of creation, but it is nothing compared to the beauty of the Creator. So rather, YOU come in!

[nichi]

One of the most wise women ever born was Rabia Al-Adawia. She was a Sufi, a great mystic, incomparable; she was sitting inside her hut with closed eyes doing something -- nobody knows what. Another mystic of the name of Hassan was staying with her, and it was morning, and the sun started coming up, and it was tremendously beautiful, with the birds singing and the trees happy again to see the light and the whole world celebrating the morn. Hassan stood there, then he called Rabia saying: Rabia, come out! See the glory of God! What a beautiful morning! Rabia said: Hassan, rather on the contrary, you come in and see God himself. THERE I know is beauty, the beauty of creation, but it is nothing compared to the beauty of the Creator. So rather, YOU come in!

That's a great one, Tio.

[nichi]

A certain dervish teacher used to spend six days of each week in meditation. On the seventh, he would journey to the town nearest his Zavia and walk from one shop to another, drinking tea and holding impromptu conversations.

On one of these occasions, a stranger saw him tasting honey-cakes in company with a certain scholar. The stranger, whose knowledge of Sufism was limited to popular conceptions of the devoutness of dervishes, exclaimed aloud in the market-place: "Shame upon the dervish who consorts with mere pedants! When a man has the choice of significant inner reflection and yet persues childish things, he is surely far from attainment!"

Among those who heard him were some who were better informed as to the teacher's repute, but not his mode of action. They said: "This man of knowledge is, no doubt, sharing his wisdom with mere ordinary folk; for have Sufis not always proclaimed that academics are at all times profoundly in need of converse with men of real experience."

This thought shamed the critic. He imagined that he had learned something through what was really a shallow rebuke, based upon generalizations.

That night, however, a subtle visitant appeared to him and said: "Because you have felt real regret, you may have a real interpretation as to the case which had perplexed you. Know, therefore, that dervishes act upon others in a manner often unsuspected by those who benefit, and unimagined by observers. The inner effect upon the scholar due to his companionship with the dervish is a thousand times greater if the dervish does not dispute him. It is powerful even if the dervish does not speak of any matter of supposed consequence at all.

"An enlightened dervish who is silent or even talking about flies and ants is having a far greater effect upon the world than a scholar talking about theories and speculations, or a sentimentalist who thinks he has deep feelings."

as collected by Idries Shah

[TIOTIT]

The pics of fly and ant were taken this morning
while I was eating breakfast...About 10-30 am
it's 6-30 pm now...just read your post with fly
and ant...had to post them...Funny....

[nichi]

LOL!
Well, you can see they're sufis right off the bat!    

[TIOTIT]

These guys were there as well

[nichi]

Pretty butterfly or moth there!

[nichi]

"Why can't we move faster?" Nasrudin's employer asked him one day. "Every time I ask you to do something, you do it piecemeal. There is really no need to go to the market three times to buy three eggs."

Nasrudin promised to reform.

His master fell ill. "Call the doctor, Nasrudin."

The Mulla went out and returned, together with a horde of people. "Here, master, is the doctor. And I have brought the others as well."

"Who are the others?"

"If the doctor should order a poultice, I have brought the poultice-maker, his assistant and the men who supply the ingredients, in case we need many poultices. The coalman is here to see how much coal we might need to heat water to make poultices. Then there is the undertaker, in case you do not survive."

as collected by Idries Shah

 

[nichi]

A disciple went to the house of a Sufi physician and asked to become an apprentice in the art of medicine. "You are impatient," said the doctor, "and so you will fail to observe things which you will need to learn."

But the young man pleaded, and the Sufi agreed to accept him. After some years the youth felt he could exercise some of the skills which he had learnt. One day a man was walking towards the house and the doctor, looking at him in the distance, said, "That man is ill. He needs pomegranates. "

"You have made the diagnosis--let me prescribe for him, and I will have done half the work," said the student.

"Very well," said the teacher, "providing that you remember that action whould also be looked at as illustration. "

As soon as the patient arrived at the doorstep, the student brought him in and said, "You are ill. Take pomegranates."

"Pomegranates! " shouted the patient, "Pomegranates to you--
nonsense!" and he went away.

The young man asked his master what the meaning of the interchange had been. "I will illustrate the next time we get a similar case," said the Sufi.

Shortly afterwards the two were sitting outside the house when the master looked up briefly and saw a man approaching. "Here is an illustration for you--a man who needs pomegranates," he said.

The patient was brought in and the doctor said to him: "You are a difficult and intricate case, I can see that. Let me see...yes, you need a special diet. This must be composed of something round, with small sacs inside, naturally occurring. An orange--that would be of the wrong color...lemons are too acid...I have it: pomegranates! "

The patient went away, delighted and grateful. "But Master," said the student, "why did you not say "pomegranates" straight away?"

"Because," said the Sufi, "he needed time as well as pomegranates. "

as collected by Idries Shah

[nichi]

One evening Nasrudin was stopped by a policeman. "This is a summons for driving through a 'stop' light."

The Mulla said: "When I go into court, I shall ask for it to be balanced against all the times I have stopped at the 'go' light and never been credited for it."

as collected by Idries Shah

 

[nichi]

The Three Wisest Men in the Land of Fools, by some lucky chance, met Khidr, walking the Earth trying to impart wisdom.

"Would you like to know the Word whereby everything can be accomplished? " he asked them.

"Yes, indeed," said the Three Wisest Men.

Khidr said: "Are you ready to hear it?"

"Yes, indeed," said they.

So Khidr told them the Word.

The First Wisest Man said: "But this is a word which anyone could pronounce -- this cannot be of any use." So he promptly forgot it.

The Second Wisest Man said: "This word is too inelegant for me," and he found that he could not remember it.

The Third Wisest Man said: "It can be written down--so it cannot be of any use. It does not sound like what I expected--so it is not the right kind of Magic Word."

Then they all noticed that a deputation of ordinary citizens of the Land of Fools was waiting to hear some of their wisdom, so they hurried off to fulfil their obligations.


as collected by Idries Shah