"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 formal effort."

"You are still adrift while you still think that a means is an end."

"Satisfaction is a treasure which does not decay."

"When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for."

"And Rumi tells us, 'Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue'."

"Whoever knows God, does not (any longer) say "God."

"Unbelief and belief are both marching on His road, while both are saying, 'He is one and He has no associates'."

"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."

"From a personal experience and the examination of literature, I feel that we cannot take for granted that a dialogue, without information and perhaps without understanding, is possible between any individuals or groups on all levels. So the prerequisite is information."

"Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious."

"It is experience which teaches, not controversy based on supposed logic and assumptions of what is likely to be true."

"One should not pray if that prayer is vanity."

"Two people can illustrate crudity to you.The first is the crude man, whom you see perceiving the diamond as a stone.The other is the refined man, who makes clear to you the crudity of the first one."

"As with any other specialisation, teaching is a vocation, open only to those who are truly capable of discharging its functions."

"Miracles, to the Sufi, are not evidential, they are instrumental."

"If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul."

"Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible."

"The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love."

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

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

"Be kind to the hawk and harm the sparrow."

"Brave is the thief who carries a lamp in his hand."

"Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time."

"The hearts of the noble are the graves of confidences."

"Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes."

"Contrary to Expectation. A wise man, the wonder of his age, taught his disciples from a seemingly inexhaustible store of wisdom. He attributed all his knowledge to a thick tome which was kept in a place of honour in his room. The sage would allow nobody to open the volume. When he died, those who had surrounded him, regarding themselves as his heirs, ran to open the book, anxious to possess what it contained. They were surprised, confused and disappointed when they found that there was writing on only one page. They became even more bewildered and then annoyed when they tried to penetrate the meaning of the phrase which met their eyes. It was: 'When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge."

"As the Eastern saying, by the sage Hilali, has it, 'one person who understands is worth a hundred who merely obey a custom."

"Teach honesty by all means - you do know what it is, don't you?"

"Has it not occurred to you that, conversely, other people do not have your difficulties because they do not react as you do to what happens?"

"People who cannot trust are themselves not trustworthy, and therefore cannot be entrusted with important things."

"All forms are limited. Some of the limitations are time, place, culture, language."

"Humility has to precede instruction."

"Sufism is experience, and hence not to be defined " imprisoned " in perennial, static categories."

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

"Inheritance and culture obscure people's higher capacities."

"The pathways into Sufic thinking are, it is traditionally said, almost as varied as the number of Sufis in existence."

"Sufis aim to refine human consciousness. This is Sufi mysticism: not mystification or magic, but a specific Path."

"Remember that greed includes greed for being not greedy."

"Sufis deny the absolute reality of time, space and physical form. These things are both relative and local. They only appear to be absolute."

"For every Pharoah there is a Moses."

"When you realise the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge."

"All approaches to a study or an individual may start with a desire for attention. However they start, they must never end up in this manner."

"One day the cub will become a wolf, even if it has been reared among the sons of man."

"To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon."

"Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed."

"People used to play with toys.Now the toys play with them."

"A Sufi school comes into being in order to flourish and disappear, not to leave traces in mechanical ritual, or anthropologically survivals."

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

"Premature independence is the daughter of conceit."

"Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction."