Thanks for this.. I just added a video of Doris Lessing on Sufism to my blog archive. But she also said in an interview.. "You don't discover the Sufi message from a writer. Sufism is something you experience on your own. It's the same for Buddhism. You can't read a book and receive enlightenment." Interview via http://www.dorislessing.org/theprogressive.html I have linked more .. Margaret Atwood paid a wonderful tribute.. it's her birthday today. Happy Birthday M. Atwood. http://www.mutanteggplant.com/vitro-nasu/2013/11/17/doris-lessing-r-i-p-2013/ On 11/18/2013 4:27 AM, marc garrett wrote:
> Doris Lessing pays tribute to a great exponent of Sufism > > The Times 1994. > > Thirty years ago there appeared The Sufis, a book which at once > announced itself as unlike any other. Hundreds of books by non-Sufis > appear every year, disappear without trace or wash up on obscure shelves > in academic libraries. This book was at once "recognised" -- a Sufi term > which may be summed up by "like calls to like" -- by a remarkable range > of people, many of them poets. The Sufis is a classic, and was by Idries > Shah, who represents a genuine mystic tradition -- there are many imitators. > > Since then he has written or compiled over 30 books, providing a > comprehensive experience of the Sufi view of life. The whole body of > work, together with his reissuing of still relevant Sufi classics, adds > up to a many-faceted whole. There are people who have taken part in this > process, book by book. Others have found this or that book useful or > entertaining. The Commanding Self is both a summing up of a third of a > century's work, and a development. People who have stayed the course > will find similar ideas here, but put into a new context or taken a step > further, sometimes unexpectedly. > > "The commanding self" is a Sufi term for the false personality. Their > contention is that we are all products of ideas put into us by our > parents, by our culture, by the time we live in, and that what is real > in us is very small (and precious). It is this part the Sufis aim to > reach and teach. Some people, hearing that nearly everything they seem > to be is only a mask made by conditioning, will say, "Well, of course!" > -- and want more information, while others may feel threatened. The > picture on the cover is a photograph of an ancient figurine, a > representation of the commanding self, like a savage dog. "Do you want > to live an angry biting life?" > > more… > http://ishk.net/sufis/lessing.html > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
