Idries Shah 27 Books Collection : A Perfumed Scorpion, A Veiled Gazelle, Caravan of Dreams, Darkest England, Destination Mecca, Evenings with Idries Shah, Knowing How to Know, Learning How to Learn, Letters and Lectures of Idries Shah, Neglected aspects o PDF
Preview Idries Shah 27 Books Collection : A Perfumed Scorpion, A Veiled Gazelle, Caravan of Dreams, Darkest England, Destination Mecca, Evenings with Idries Shah, Knowing How to Know, Learning How to Learn, Letters and Lectures of Idries Shah, Neglected aspects o
A P e r f u m e d Sc o r p i o n Contains the substance of lectures given by Idries Shah at universities in the United States of America, under the aegis of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University. Books by Idries Shah Sufi Studies and Middle Eastern Literature The Sufis Caravan of Dreams The Way of the Sufi Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-stories Over a Thousand Years Sufi Thought and Action Traditional Psychology, Teaching Encounters and Narratives Thinkers of the East: Studies in Experientialism Wisdom of the Idiots The Dermis Probe Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way Knowing How to Know The Magic Monastery: Analogical and Action Philosophy Seeker After Truth Observations Evenings with Idries Shah The Commanding Self University Lectures A Perfumed Scorpion (Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge and California University) Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas (Sussex University) The Elephant in the Dark: Christianity, Islam and the Sufis (Geneva University) Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study: Beginning to Begin (The New School for Social Research) Letters and Lectures of Idries Shah Current and Traditional Ideas Reflections The Book of the Book A Veiled Gazelle: Seeing How to See Special Illumination: The Sufi Use of Humour The Mulla Nasrudin Corpus The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin The World of Nasrudin Travel and Exploration Destination Mecca Studies in Minority Beliefs The Secret Lore of Magic Oriental Magic Selected Folktales and Their Background World Tales A Novel Kara Kush Sociological Works Darkest England The Natives Are Restless The Englishman’s Handbook Translated by Idries Shah The Hundred Tales of Wisdom (Aflaki’s Munaqib) A P e r f u m e d Sc o r p i o n ‘The Way to the Way’ Idries Shah Whoever might perfume a scorpion Will not thereby escape its sting – Hadrat Bahaudin Naqshband, The Shah ISF PUBLISHING Copyright © The Estate of Idries Shah The right of the Estate of Idries Shah to be identified as the owner of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved Copyright throughout the world ISBN 978-1-78479-096-7 First published 1978 Published in this edition 2017 No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photographic, by recording or any information storage or retrieval system or method now known or to be invented or adapted, without prior permission obtained in writing from the publisher, ISF Publishing, except by a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review written for inclusion in a journal, magazine, newspaper, blog or broadcast. Requests for permission to reprint, reproduce etc., to: The Permissions Department ISF Publishing The Idries Shah Foundation P. O. Box 71911 London NW2 9QA United Kingdom [email protected] In association with The Idries Shah Foundation The Idries Shah Foundation is a registered charity in the United Kingdom Charity No. 1150876 Contents I Sufi Education 1 Monitoring by the teacher maintains progress 1 Barriers to learning 2 Indirect teaching 3 Overdoing things can be poisonous . . . 4 Finding further ranges in jokes 5 Negative and positive operation 6 Human completion or psychotherapy? 7 Sufism learned by means of itself 7 Cult-formation as an abnormality 8 Hemispheric brain-function 8 Transposition of concepts 9 Awareness of motivation 10 True and false teachers 10 Contemporary psychology 10 Consumerism in approaching knowledge 11 Limitations of working with derivative material 12 How not to learn 13 The circuses 13 Teachership is function, not appearance 14 The example of Christianity 15 Modifications through imagination 16 Sufi analysis of education 17 Who would admit to ignorance? 20 The aim 21 Flexibility 21 Assumptions and points of view 22 vii IDRIES SHAH Sequential and holistic thought 23 Narratives 24 Shifting of attention 25 Basis of Sufi theory and practice 26 Energetic attention 26 Supersession exercises 27 Anonymity of the Sufi 28 Harmonisation 30 Imagination 31 Rites, beliefs, practices 32 The evil eye 32 The desire matched by the means 33 The three approaches 34 Two ways . . . 34 The false student learns his falsity 35 ‘Come back in three years’ 36 Examining assumptions 36 The untaught and the wrongly taught 37 The wise man and foolishness 38 ‘Chaotic’ literature 39 Discontinuity 40 The visitor from space 41 II On the Nature of Sufi Knowledge 43 The disciple who became a teacher 43 Monitoring and fresh adaptation 45 Teaching versus entertaining 45 The right to be served, not the right to demand 46 Seeing and understanding 49 The quality of understanding 53 Learning problems inherent in cultural priorities 54 The purr and the snore 57 Proliferation of externals 59 A school and a leaven 63 viii A PERFUMED SCORPION Perceiving the imitators 64 Seeing and knowing 68 The relative as a channel to the true 70 Advantages for Sufi knowledge 72 III The Path and the Duties and Techniques 75 Three capacities: ghazzali 76 The ten duties of the student 77 The stations and the states 79 Tale of the amazing experiences 81 The conditions of the human self 82 The invisible teacher 85 The Eleven Rules of the Naqshbandiyya (Masters of the Design) 86 Beard, cloak and rosary 88 The Five Subtleties 91 What the teacher knows 93 Wonders and miracles 93 A flowerless garden 94 Going faster . . . 95 IV The Teaching Story – 1 97 Time and pomegranates 98 Abolition of impact 99 Analogical teaching 101 Nutrition from the container 102 ‘Innermost’ feelings 103 Stealing advice 104 The symptoms 106 The camelman and the plastic 109 Fish out of water 110 What he was trying to do 112 Doing your own thing 113 Why didn’t you say? 115 ix IDRIES SHAH The tales as structures 116 The secret protecting itself 118 A meaning of silence 119 A different kind of disciple 120 The testing function 121 Nasrudin 123 Putting in and taking out 123 The lion who saw his face in the water 124 Panacea 126 Admit one . . . 127 Moths 128 Reserved 129 What to see 129 Sure remedy 130 Unanimous 130 V The Teaching Story – 2 133 Pattern-seeking 134 Didactic prevents understanding 136 VI A Framework for New Knowledge . . . 139 The fruit of the tree 139 Community assumptions 140 Exclusion of possibilities 142 Science and reality 144 New learning from the past 146 Observance versus knowledge 149 Simplification 153 How, when and with whom 155 Themes and cultural context 157 Above the skies . . . 159 Higher concepts 160 Interplay 162 The shock element 163 x
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