A Real Secret Is Something

To Be Obsessed By The Idea Of Freedom, For Instance, Is Itself A Form Of Slavery. Such People Are In The Chains Of The Hope Of Freedom, And Are Therefore Able To Do Little Else Than Struggle With Them.

One Can Give Or Withhold In A Manner Far More Effective, Sophisticated, Useful, Which Is Quite Invisible To People Who Think That Giving Or Withholding Is Done By External Assessment. If You Seek Some Mark Of Favour Or 'promotion', Know That You Are Not Ready For It. Progress Comes Through Capacity To Learn, And Is Irresistible. Nobody Can Stand Between You And Knowledge If You Are Fit For It.

There Is A Succession Of Experiences Which Together Constitute The Educational And Developmental Ripening Of The Learner, According To The Sufis. People Who Think That Each Gain Is The Goal Itself Will Freeze At Any Such Stage, And Cannot Learn Through Successive And Superseding Lessons.

The Sufi Is One Who Does Not Care When Something Is Taken From Him, But Who Does Not Cease To Seek For What He Has Not.

Man (and Woman) Has An Infinite Capacity For Self-development. Equally, He Has An Infinite Capacity For Self-destruction. A Human Being May Be Clinically Alive And Yet, Despite All Appearances, Spiritually Dead.