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

5836 Pages·2022·37.844 MB·English

by  Idries Shah, Idris Shah, Eckhart Tolle, Anthony de Mello, Mulla Nasrudin

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