1. Sufi Studies Today
In the last two decades many people have become aware that their capabilities for development and understanding are greater than they had previously thought. Sufi study provides a means for this development and an understanding of its meaning for the individual and for humanity as a whole.
The Sufis have been using carefully constructed stories for teaching purposes for thousands of years. Throughout his life Idries Shah (1924-1996), recognized as the foremost authority on contemporary Sufi education, wrote more than thirty books containing such teaching stories and narratives. Though on the surface these often appear to be little more than fairy or folk tales, the Sufis hold that they enshrine -- in their characters, plots and imagery -- patterns and relationships that nurture a part of the mind not reachable in more conventional ways, thus increasing our understanding, flexibility and breadth of vision. Familiarization with this body of material can eventually provide answers to questions about our origins and our destiny.
"We have done all we can to embody as much of the teachership function as we can in the literature itself which we have published, largely we have been able to do this by excluding a lot of extraneous and external accretions ... We have been able to reconstitute the emphasis of the stories, so instead of their being instruments only to make you think how great the spiritual master is and how nothing you are, and how wonderful the possibilities of the situation are, we have retrieved the dynamic of the stories in order to show aside from those things what is possible ... what is called in some disciplines enlightenment, can be in the Sufi process, the result of the falling into place of a large number of small impacts and perceptions (from these stories and one's own experiences) producing insights when the individual is ready for them."
"We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before." -- Idries Shah
2. Doris Lessing on Sufism and Idries Shah's The Commanding Self
3. About Idries Shah
4. The Complete Works of Idries Shah
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