Idries Shah Quotes

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in 'renouncing' one's own self, by which I mean making up one's mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being 'happy' or 'unhappy' in the usual meaning of the words.

When one, abandoning greed, feels no greed for what would merit greed, greed gets shed from him - like a drop of water from a lotus leaf.

Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.

Man must do his part and detach himself from created things.

Through love one acquires renunciation and discrimination naturally.

Quit Babylon for love of the Babylonians.And do not seek ease or security you can obtain by using Babylon. What will it avail you to cease living in Babylon if you do not also cease living on Babylon?

Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!

This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Real. We must go to the Real. Renunciation will take us to It. Renunciation is the very basis of our true life; every moment of goodness and real life that we enjoy is when we do not think of ourselves.

Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus with thy hand!

He who gives up action falls. He who gives up the reward rises. But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result.

The sage desires no desire, does not value rare treasures, learns without learning, recovers what people have left behind.

Renunciation means absence of hankering after fruit.

The sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost.

Refraining from all evil, not clinging to birth and death, working in deep compassion for all sentient beings, respecting those over you and pitying those below you, without any detesting or desiring, worrying or lamentation - this is what is called Buddha. Do not search beyond it.

Let your greatest possession be the ability to let go of any possession, joyfully.

Do not any longer contend for mastery, for power, money, or praise. Be content to be a private, insignificant person, known and loved by God and me....of what importance is your character to mankind, if you was buried just now. Or if you had never lived, what loss would it be to the cause of God.

In order to possess what you do not possess, you must go by the way of dispossession.

No one can be a yogi, maintaining a state of mental equilibrium, free from inner involvement in planned desireful activities, unless he has renounced identification with his ego and its unsatisfiable lust for the fruits of actions.

Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame.

I am totally unattached to material items.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it.

It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self?

The Dalai Lama was once asked for his favorite chant, and he said it was better not to have a favorite anything, which I think is a great thought.