Idries Shah Quotes

Rather, Spirit, and enlightement, has to be something that you are fully aware of right now. Something you are already looking at right now... We are all already looking directly at Spirit, we just don't recognize it. We have all the necessary cognition, but not the recognition.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

Those who have advanced rise to the mind which is in the head, - they have the play of their mental movements in the head itself. But all these are inside the body; man is, as it were, shut up in a box, his entire consciousness is confined within the organism. This imprisonment has to be undone.

The the illuminated mind the whole world sparkles with light.

That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge.

There are times, you know, it's said in the Spiritual Tradition, just a glimpse at an enlightened personage can convey immense information at the sub-conscious level that sprouts later, that we don't even know.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

Our greatest human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.

Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

All bad qualities centre round the ego. When the ego is gone, Realisation results by itself. There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.

Therefore when the mind knows itself and loves itself, there remains a trinity, that is the mind, love and knowledge.

Being enlightened is just being aware. It's just being aware of something that you weren't aware before.

Wisdom happens through meditation, and bliss also happens through meditation. Both the flowers bloom on the same branch.

For many people, the first indication of a spiritual awakening is that they suddenly become aware of their thoughts. They become a witness to their thoughts, so to speak. They are not completely identified with their mind anymore and so they begin to sense that there is a depth to them that they had never known before.

Learn to recognize the false dawn from the true; distinguish the color of the wine from the color of the cup. Then it may be that patience and time may produce, out of the spectrum-viewing sight, true vision, and you will behold colors other than these mortal hues, you will see pearls instead of stones. Pearls, did I say? Nay more, you will become a sea, you will become a sun traveling the sky.

Your job on Earth, therefore, is not to learn (because you already know), but to remember Who You Are. And to remember who everyone else is.

When the mind loses its density, you become translucent, like the flower. Spirit - the formless - shines through you into the world.

To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, This is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, This is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of the sickness Shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health.

The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.

Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually. You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.

To have a developed intellect is always helpful if one can enlighten it from above and turn it to a divine use.

Through meditative techniques, one can free the mind of delusions and attain what we call enlightenment.

The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.

What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears.