There is more than one jewel in Sufi wisdom. We know Rumi aka Mevlana, and closer to us Idries Shah, perhaps Shams Tabrizi is less known. He was the master of Rumi who praised his magnificent elevation. His words reported by his famous disciple are precious markers on any interior path.
Understand
The whole universe is in the human being. The Devil is not a monster watching you, it’s a voice inside. Search your devil in you, not in others.
Who knows his devil, knows his God. Do not forget it.
Joy is pure pure water; where it flows, grow wonderful flowers. Grief is a black deluge; where it flows, fade the flowers.
This world is like a mountain. Your echo depends on you. If you shout good things, the world will send them back to you. If you cry bad things, the world will send them back to you too. If anyone says bad things about you, say good things about him. Change your heart, you will change the world.
To surrender is not a weakness. On the contrary, it is a force. The one who yields comes out of the boiling water. He begins to live in a safe place.
“Am I ready to change my life, am I ready to change?” It’s never too late to ask you. Your age does not count, your past does not count, it is always possible to be reborn. Every breath is a new chance. But to be born again to real life, you have to die before you die.
Be grateful. It’s easy to thank after getting what you want. Thanks so before.
Learn
You can not learn and progress without your contradictions. The inner believer must meet the skeptic. The skeptic must meet the believer. The human advances slowly and matures accepting its contradictions.
The patience is not to sit down and wait, but to predict. Patience is to see the rose looking at the thorn, it is to see the dawn while watching the night. Impatience is a blindfold on your eyes that hides the result. Lovers of God never lack patience, they know that it takes time for the crescent moon to become full.
To get closer to the true and the just, you need a beautiful and sweet heart. one day or another, everyone learns to become more gentle. After an accident, because of an illness, the disappearance of a loved one, a material loss … When that happens, you can see the good side and open your heart, or see a good reason to lock it for ever.
There are more false guides and false teachers on earth than stars in the sky. The true guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed.
When everyone tries to be something, do not be anything. Aim for emptiness. The human should be like a pot. As the pot holds by its inner emptiness, man holds by the consciousness of his nothingness.
Love
It is easy to love perfection. The difficulty is to love the human with his good and his bad. We mainly know as much as we like. By loving only God, but not his creatures, we can never really know, nor really love.
The universe is a single, complete entity. All and all are connected with invisible threads. Do not break anyone’s heart; do not despise weaker than you. The pain of one alone at the other end of the world can make the whole world suffer; his happiness can make the world smile.
Most conflicts and tensions come from words. Do not pay as much attention to lyrics. In the land of love, language has no place. Love is silent.
Love is a journey. All travelers, whether they like it or not, are changed. Nobody can travel in love and stay the same.
A good man does not complain of anyone; he does not seek the faults of others.
Wherever you go, east, west, north or south, think of it as a journey in yourself! He who travels in himself, travels the world.
A life without love is a waste. “Do I have to seek spiritual love or physical love?” Do not ask yourself this question. Love does not need a name, a category, or a definition. Love is a world by itself. Either you’re in it, in the center … or you’re outside, sucking it up.
The chemistry of the mind is different from the chemistry of love. The mind is cautious, suspicious, it advances little by little. He advises, “Be careful, protect yourself” while love says, “Let yourself go!” The spirit is strong, it never falls while love hurts, falls into ruins. But is it not in the ruins that we find the treasures? A broken heart hides so much wealth!
Do not seek heaven and hell in the future. Both are here and now. Whenever you manage to love without waiting, without calculation, without negotiation, you are in paradise. Every time you fight, you hate, you’re in hell.
The Author
Shams ed Dîn Tabrîzî is a Sufi Muslim mystic from Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan and died in 1248. He is responsible for the initiation of Jalâl ud Dîn Rûmî, also known under the name of Rumi, Mevlana or Molana to Islamic mysticism, and was immortalized by Rumi’s collection of poems entitled Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi (“The Works of Shams of Tabriz”). Shams and Rumi lived together in Konya, now in Turkey, for several years, and we also know that he traveled to Damascus, now in Syria. Some people think that he would have been murdered by Rumi’s disciples.