Volume 11, Issue 2, page 13

THE SUFIS, by Idries Shah, 404
PP., $5.95. Pub. by Doubleday & Co., Garden City, N.Y.

For the unenlightened, the
most rewarding part of Idries
Shah's new book, "The Sufis",
may well be the chapter on the
Subtleties of Mulla Nasrudin.
These tales are used by Sufi
teachers to caricature ordinary mental processes and to
awaken the student's intuition.
Perhaps they might be compared
to the koans of the Zen Buddhist, but they have a humorous slant which has resulted
in their appearance in nearly
every literature of the world --
even in "Pat and Mike" jokes .

Sufis are an ancient spiritual freemasonry whose origin
cannot be traced nor dated,
altho their influence shows up
in Islam, Christianity, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and
other mystical schools and religions. According to the description given by Shah, Sufism
is not planted like the oak
tree, but is self-engrafted
thereon like the mistletoe,
and keeps green even after the
tree dies.

To be "in the world, but
not of it", free from ambition,
greed, intellectual pride,
blind obedience to custom, or
awe of persons higher in rank
-- that is the Sufi ideal. They
consider concern for personal
salvation an e x pression of
vanity, and their aim is know< ledge thru experience and enlightenment thru love.

The mystical experience
which is considered by other
systems the be-all and end-all
of the quest, is for the Sufi
nothing more than a prelude to
attainment of true association
with objective reality. This
ecstatic condition is compared
A4 to a flood-light shining into
c14 the eyes of one formerly blind .
l It has a glory and fascination ,
pU but is of no use because it
a dazzles.

Our present day has urgent
need of Sufi teachers and
schools because of the growing
number of persons with extrasensory abilities such as telepathy and prophecy, which the
author claims indicates the
continuing evolution of man13 kind. These are some of the
abilities which are awakened
by Sufi methods, and which they
can establish on a dependable
basis. However, modern man has
been so conditioned to logical
thinking and a desire to be
independent that often he cannot see the need for a teacher.

This is illustrated in the
allegory of the stream trying
to cross a desert, but always
sinking into the sand. Finally,
the sand told the stream to let
itself be absorbed by the wind
which would then carry it over
the desert, but the stream
protested it did not want to
lose its individuality, as it
might not exist again. The
sand explained how the stream
would again fall to earth as
rain on the other side of the
desert but the stream wanted
to know if it would then oe
the same river.
"You cannot in any case remain the same stream that you
are today," the sand replied.
"The choice is not open to you;
it only seems to be open. The
wind will carry your essence,
the finer part of you. When
you become a river again, men
may call you by a different
name, but you yourself, essentially, will know that you are
the same."
So the stream let the wind
carry it over the desert and
it was dropped atop the mountains. "Now," said the stream,
"I have learned my true identity. But why could I not reason this out on my own; why did
the sands have to tell me?"
Suddenly a small voice spoke
to the stream. It came from a
grain of sand. "Only the sands
know, for they have seen it
happen; moreover, they extend
from the river to the mountain.
They form the link and they
have their function to perform, as has everything. The
way in which the stream of
life is to carry itself on its
journey is written in t h e
sands."
Man is really not as free
as he thinks he is, but is
controlled by fixed ideas and
prejudices, and automatic responses to his training. The
first step is for the individual to get away from thinking
that he understands. Within
man is a treasure, says t h e
Sufi teaching, but it is like a
treasure hidden beneath the
house (fixed-thinking patterns)
and the treasure cannot be
found until the house is torn
down.

There are several chapters
in this book about the great
teachers (or Masters) of the
past, their teaching, and the
significance of the names they
chose. Here is an interesting
parallel with the theories of
Philip Friedman as to the importance of consonants in words,
as Sufi names were chosen with
careful attention to consonants and their numerical values, as well as the various
meanings which would be derived by digerent arrangements
of added vowels.

A great deal of the material in "The Sufis" is incomplete, the author says, because
it is not possible to increase
the amount of formal literature
about Sufism without the balance of the Sufic practice.
Sufism is known by means of
itself. -- Sol)hi a Tryst
"HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A BOO-HOO?"
-- Interview with L.Ron Hubbard by James Phelan, in Saturday Evening Post for March
21, 1964.

Anyone who is now concerned
with Scientology or who, in
the past, was interested in
Dianetics should not miss t h e
4-page article on L.Ron Hubbard and his so-called church.

If the reader is at all familiar with Mary Baker Eddy of
Christian Science fame; the
Bal l ards and their I AM movement, or Freud and his psychoanalysis, and Adolph Hitler
and his use of the Big Lie will
recognize the four corner
stones of Ron Hubbard's ScientologY.

H. A. S. International, if w e
may accept the scope of Hubbard's statement (which I do
not), will corral most of the
inhabitants of this mad, mau,
world by 1970 .

At the present time, it anpears that Hubbard will be
forced to find a substitute
for his E-meter which the FDA
confiscated a few months ago.

Dianetics, Scientology, and
the Beatles -- plus an assassination or two -- all go to prove
that this is a nation ill spiritually, mentally, and economically. It promises to get
very much worse before it gets
better, so let us all try our
collective best to remain sane
and avoid the custody of the
boys in the white coats -- Wing
Anderson.
(ED. NOTE -- Thank you, Wing,
for sending the clipping from
the POST. It was quite revealing -- in a sickening sort of
way. In it, we saw no evidence
whatever that Scientology has
halted its tobogganing into
sheer nonsense -- or that it deserves even casual mention in
a great magazine such as the
POST once WAS.)
The Law is this: The more
you think about yourself, the
more troubles you heap upon
yourself. The less you think
about yourself, the happier and
healthier you will be, and the
younger you will remain. -- From
"Life Is as You Give It" by
Louis Conde -Lahissa.