First I thought that a Teacher must be right in all things.

Then I imagined that my teacher was wrong in many things.

Then I realized what was right and what was wrong.

What was wrong was to remain in either of the first two states.

What was right was to convey this to everyone.

If you want to be with the Teacher when he wants yu to be apart from him, you must obey hi or shun him. If you argue about it, you are worse than disobedient.

Allow the Source of Being to maintain contact with you: ignore the impressions and opinions of your customary self. If this self were of value in your search, it would have found realization for you. But all it can do is to depend upon others.

The assumption that anyone of worth can explain himself fully and lucidly in the time allotted him by those who want to learn what he knows – is either a joke or a stupidity.

They asked Firmani:

‘How did you know that such-and-such a man was vicious? You refused to converse deeply with him while hw was here, although everyone said that he was a saint.’

Firmani said:

‘If a stranger comes to ordinary men and says “Light is made by weaving. I wove all the light there is and was,” what do they realize?’

They answered:

‘They realize that what he says is untrue.’

Firmani said:

‘Similarly, when a vicious individual enters the company of a man of knowledge, it is not difficult to judge his condition, regardless of what people imagine or say.’

O Pedant! Sift, all your life, the writings and he sayings of the Wise. But first of all learn one thing: you are using a sieve which lets through chaff and discards the nutrient, the wheat.

O man! If you only knew how many of the false fantasies of the imagination were nearer to the truth than the careful conclusions of the cautious. And how these truths are of no service until the imaginer, having done his work with the imagination, has become less imaginative.

‘It may be said: “They came in vain.”

Let it not be that they came in vain

We have this, the bequest, to you;

We finished what we could, we left the rest to you

Remember, this is work entrusted

Remember, beloved, we shall meet again’

If you read, if you practice, you may qualify for a Sufi circle. If you only read, you will not, if you think you have had experiences upon which you can build, you may not qualify.

Words alone do not communicate: there must be something prepared, of which the words are a hint.

Practice alone does not perfect humanity. Man needs the contact of the truth, initially in a form which will help him.

What is suitable and unexceptionable for one time and place is generally limited, unsuitable or hindrance in another time and place. This is true in the search and also in many fields of ordinary life.

Hope and work so that you may be acceptable to a Sufi circle. Do not try to judge it or its members unless you are free from greed. Greed makes you believe things you would not normally believe. It makes you disbelieve things you should ordinarily believe.

If you cannot overcome, greed, exercise it only where you can see it working, do not bring it into the circle of the initiates.

One of man’s greatest difficulties is also his most obvious drawback. It could be corrected if anyone troubled himself to point it out often and cogently enough.

It is the difficulty that man is describing himself when he thinks that he is describing others.

How often do you hear people say, about me:

‘I regard this man as the Qutub (magnetic Pole) of the Age?’

He means, of course: ‘I regard this man…’

He is describing his own feelings or convictions, when what we might want to know is something about the person or thing being described.

When he says: ‘This teaching is sublime,’ he means:

‘This appears to suit me.’ But we might have wanted to know something about the teaching, not how he thinks it influences him.

Some people say: ‘But a thing can truly be known by its effect. Why not observe the effect upon a person?’

Most people do not understand that the effect of, say, Sunlight on trees is something constant. In order to know the nature of the teaching, we would have to know the nature of the person upon whom it has acted. The ordinary person cannot know this: all he can know is what that person assumes to be an effect upon himself — and he has no coherent picture of what ‘himself’ is. Since the outward observer knows even less than the person describing himself, we are left with quite useless evidence. We have no reliable witness.

Remember, that while this situation still obtains, there will generally be an equal number of people saying: ‘This is marvelous,’ as are saying: ‘This is ridiculous’. This is ridiculous really means: ‘This appears ridiculous to me,’ and ‘this is marvelous’ means: ‘This appears marvelous to me.’

Do you really enjoy being like that?

Many people do, while energetically pretending otherwise.

Would you like to be able to test what really is ridiculous or marvelous, or anything in between?

You can do it, but not when you presume that you can do it without any practice, without any training, in the midst of being quite uncertain as to what it is you are and why you like or dislike anything.

When you have found yourself you can have knowledge. Until then you can only have opinions. Opinions are based on habit and what you conceive to be convenient to you.

The study of the Way requires self-encounter along the way. You have not met yourself yet. The only advantage of meeting others in the meantime is that one of them may present you to yourself.

Before you do that, you will possibly imagine that y0’’ have met yourself many times. But the truth is that when you do meet yourself you come into a permanent endowment and bequest of knowledge that is like no other experience on earth.