Showing results by narrator "David Ault" in All Categories

A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner. Seeker After Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters, and lectures by Idries Shah. Taken together, it constitutes a handbook of materials designed to provoke a different kind of thought. 

The Way of the Sufi presents an unparalleled cross-section of material from Sufi schools, Sufi teachings, and classical writings as a basic course of Sufi study. The author begins with the outward aspects of the teaching most likely to puzzle the student coming fresh to the subject. He considers various attitudes to Sufi ideas and evidence of their absorption into medieval Christianity, Hinduism, Jewish mysticism, and modern philosophical teachings.

When it first appeared in 1964, The Sufis was welcomed as the decisive work on the subject of Sufi thought. Rich in scope, author Idries Shah explained clearly the traditions and philosophy of the Sufis to a Western audience for the first time. In the five decades since its release, the book has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and has found a wide readership in both East and West. Containing detailed information on the major Sufi thinkers, and literary characters, such as Nasrudin, it is regarded as a key work on both Sufism and Eastern Philosophy.

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shah’s remarkable volume World Tales, which is subtitled “The extraordinary coincidence of stories told in all times, in all places.”

Condensed from more than three million words, these conversations involve housewives and cabinet ministers, professors and assembly-line workers, on the subject of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social, and spiritual problems. More than 100 tales and extracts from Sufi lore, ranging from the eighth century (Hasan of Basra) to the modern Afghan poet Khalilullah Khalili, are woven into Shah’s narratives of how and why the Sufis learn what they learn and how spiritual understanding develops and deteriorates in all societies.

A young medical student named Fettes is assisting his professor in procuring cadavers to be dissected by his fellow students. He knows many of the bodies that are sold to him were stolen from graves - but he needs his job and keeps his silence. To remain silent, however, is to invite worse trouble. Late one night there is a knock at the door and another cadaver is delivered to Fettes - one he recognizes. It's Jane Galbraith, a woman Fettes had seen alive and well only a day before.

Here, in three definitive volumes, Shah takes us to the very heart of this mysterious mentor, the Mulla Nasrudin. They're comprised of skillful contemporary retellings of hundreds of collected stories and sayings bringing the unmistakable wisdom, wit, and charm of the timeless jokester to life.

In Idries Shah's Wisdom of the Idiots, the "idiots" are Sufis, called this because their wisdom penetrates to a depth which renders it inaccessible to the merely intelligent or academically knowledgeable. The stories of the Sufis are tools prepared for a specific purpose. On this level the movements of the characters in a story portray psychological processes, and the story becomes a working blueprint of those processes.

In December of 1979, Soviet tanks rolled across the borders of Afghanistan, beginning a period of barbaric aggression that triggered a turning point in modern history. Idries Shah's brilliant novel chronicles the courageous 10-year resistance of the Afghan people, an epic story of triumph over tyranny that deserves to be immortalized. 

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend, or folklore. They stand comparison in wit, construction, and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little-known in the modern world, that no technical or popular terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.

Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan. The book is the product of years of research and fieldwork in a dozen different cultural regions. Its scholarly accuracy and genuine contribution to cultural understanding have made it a key text for anyone interested in informal beliefs and esoteric practices. 

Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of Sufi stories, sayings, poems, and allegories collected by one of the world's leading experts in Oriental philosophy and Sufism. Idries Shah builds up a complete picture of a single consciousness, relating Eastern mythology to reality, illuminating historical patterns, and presenting philosophical legends in this unique anthology.

Orphaned John Trenchard grows up in the village of Moonfleet with his aunt, entranced by the local legend of the ghostly Blackbeard, who rises each winter night to search for his lost diamond. While conducting his own hunt for the treasure, John is trapped in the church crypt and discovers the true secret of the village: smuggling.

The Commanding Self, in Sufic terminology, is that mixture of the primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. This audiobook was described by Shah as the key to understanding his entire corpus of work. While complete in itself as an anthology of hitherto unpublished work, it serves to illustrate and amplify Idries Shah’s preceding books on the Sufi Way.

A Veiled Gazelle, as the great mystic Ibn Arabi explains in his interpreter of desires, is a subtlety, an organ of higher perception. Sufi experientialists refer to the activation of these centres of awareness as the awakening of real knowledge of truth beyond form. A Veiled Gazelle considers the symbolic and instrumental employment of its literature in Sufi studies. Seldom didactic, and never meant only as entertainment, such works are regarded as some of the world’s greatest and most important writing.

Previously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action - assembled and introduced by Idries Shah - covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries and cultures. Included in the volume are papers on Sufi principles and learning methods; ritual, initiation, and secrets in Sufi circles; and key concepts in Sufi understanding.

The "perfuming of a scorpion", referred to by the great Sufi teacher Bahaudin, symbolizes hypocrisy and self-deception: both in the individual and in institutions. In A Perfumed Scorpion, Idries Shah directs attention to both the perfume and the scorpion - the overlay and the reality - in psychology, human behavior and the learning process. Crammed with illustrative anecdotes from contemporary life, the book is nevertheless rooted in the teaching patterns of Rumi, Hafiz, Jami, and many other great Oriental sages. It deals with the need for and the path to knowledge and information.

The appeal of Nasrudin is as universal and timeless as the truths he illustrates. His stories are read by children, by scientists and scholars, and by followers of philosophy. Sufi scholar Idries Shah assembled this collection of Nasrudin's trials and tribulations from ancient Eastern manuscripts and oral literature, from sources in North Africa and Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia. Many were known to the great Sufi masters, Rumi, Jami, and Attar the chemist.

Assembled by Idries Shah, The World of the Sufi is a comprehensive collection of learned essays and papers on the subject of Sufi thought. One of the book’s attractions is the way that it considers central questions and areas of study from different angles. Sufi literature, the use of humour, and Sufi communities in various cultural settings are some of the many subjects discussed. In addition, experts in their fields comment on areas such as Sufism and psychiatry, Indian thought and the Sufis, and therapy and the Sufi.

The Idries Shah Anthology is a special collection of previously published work by Idries Shah, and was edited by Saira Shah. This title includes an Introduction by Saira Shah, as well as comments and annotations throughout the audio.