The people of the world have a fixed destiny. But the…

“Worthy or not, you will receive your destiny. Awake or not you will notice.”

— Julieanne O'Connor

Karma is often wrongly confused with the notion of a fixed destiny. It is more like an accumulation of tendencies that can lock us…

— Jon Kabat-Zinn

“When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial.”

— Idries Shah

“Show me a person who really knows what 'good' is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.”

— Idries Shah

“Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?”

— Idries Shah

“There is a saying that, according to what a person's mentality is, even an angel may seem to him to have a devil's face.”

— Idries Shah

“It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.”

— Idries Shah

“Saadi: Be a true renouncer, (zahid) and [you can even] ware satin.”

— Idries Shah

“You may be able to get the bone down your throat But if it reaches your stomach it will tear your navel. (Gulistan)”

— Idries Shah

It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

— Idries Shah

“Yes, the world is an illusion. But Truth is always being shown there.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah

“Do not tell your secrets to everyone in this headquarters, Earth. We have surveyed it well. There was nobody to whom to entrust secrets.”

— Idries Shah

“Sufism is transmitted by means of the human exemplar, the teacher.”

— Idries Shah

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

— Idries Shah