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.
Idries Shah
In the modern world we are in a paradoxical situation; because although in theory man knows that he can extend his attention to something and then remove it, he very often does not do so. In many areas he does not look at something and then detach from it, and look at something else.
Once he has found something to interest himself in, he cannot detach himself from it efficiently, and therefore he cannot be objective. Note that, in most if not all languages, we have words like 'objectivity' which leads people to imagine that they have it, or can easily use it. That is equivalent (in reality if not in theory) to saying 'I know the word gold, so I am rich.
If you are uninterested in what I say, there's an end to it. If you like what I say, please try to understand which previous influences have made you like it. If you like some of the things I say, and dislike others, you could try to understand why. If you dislike all I say, why not try to find out what formed your attitude?
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.
Idries Shah
Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey:
The sages who have compassed sea and land,
Their secret to search out and understand,
My mind misgives me if they ever solve
The scheme on which the universe is planned.
Tahir Shah
Idries Shah
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.
