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

Worry is a cloud which rains destruction.

Words have to die if humans are to live.

Saying of the ProphetObligation to LearnThe pursuit of knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim.

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

God”.

Remembering and ForgettingYou have not forgotten to remember; You have remembered to forget.But people can forget to forget. That is just as important as remembering to remember – and generally more practical.

Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy.

The only thing I know is that a person who is not busy with others is one who recognizes the truth of existence.

Our thoughts have prepared for us the happiness or unhappiness we experience.

Learn about hornets from those who have been stung by them.

However fast you run, or however skilfully, you can’t run away from your own feet.

The barren branches may appear inelegant: They are, to the cook, the means to make his fire.

The existence of relative truth does not prove the non-existence of universal truth.

You can learn more in half an hour’s direct contact with a source of knowledge (no matter the apparent reason for the contact or the subject of the transaction) than you can in years of...

The more wakeful a man is to the things which surround him, the more asleep is he, and his waking is worse than his sleep.

Mediation – Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

Whoever has not first dug a well, should not steal a minaret.

Voice in the nightA voice whispered to me last night: ‘There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night!

Sufi’s soul seeking serenity succeeds at the cost of the body which gets spifflicated by the spines of the social world.

Hit your hand on a stone and expect it to hurt.

Saying of the ProphetThe JudgeA man appointed to be a judge has been killed without a knife.

Scholars of the East and West have heroically consecrated their whole working lives to making available, by means of their own disciplines, Sufi literary and philosophical material to the world at large. In many cases...

Remember the proverb: ‘A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.

The real generosity is when a man does something generous when nobody knows about it.

To be a Sufi is to detach from fixed ideas and from preconceptions; and not to try to avoid what is your lot.

To bind one free man with love is better than to release a thousand slaves.

Dye your hair, certainly. But what can you do for your face?

Truth has no form.

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...

Similitude of the heart is like that of a telephone operator between man and God.

Soar on to the King, the crown jewel,And then you’ll truly seeThat nothing is as beautifulAs His grand Majesty.

Even if false gold makes a man happy:At the mint it will be identified.

Saying of the ProphetWomenWomen are the twin-halves of men.

…most systems end up by making imagined humility into a form of vanity, so they end up with vanity just the same.

The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.

The Sufi is ‘One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.

Saying of the ProphetAccusationsAnyone reviling a brother for a sin will not himself die before committing it.

Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same.

To Him who has sense, a sign is enoughFor the heedless, however, a thousand expositions are not enough.

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

Humility cannot be taught by propaganda, though slavery can. Shouting for humility is a form of arrogance. One of my most abiding recollections is of a priest at a religious occasion once roaring, in the...

A wise teacher is a keen and true student of absolute beauty and truth, and he searches everywhere for them in nature with all his heart

Selfishness keeps man blind through life.

Three ThingsThree things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity.(Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet),

They asked Abboud of Omdurman: ‘Which is better, to be young or to be old?’ He said: ‘To be old is to have less time before you and more mistakes behind. I leave you to...

Patience is the food of understanding.

HE is a Master who may teach without it being totally labelled teaching; HE is a student who can learn without being obsessed by learning.

It is a Sufi contention that truth is not discovered or maintained by the mere repetition of teachings. It can only be kept understood by the perpetual experience of it. And it is in the...

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.