The Little Book of Sufi Stories: Ancient Wisdom to Nourish the Heart

Like a Zen koan, a real Sufi story allows a person's innate wisdom to arise from the inside.

Likewise, some authors overly embellish or interpret Sufi stories with an agenda in mind (often psychological or theological). They map out the whole story as an allegory that supports a principle they want to convey. In my view, this is (as one Zen master commented) like going to a restaurant and ordering a vitamin pill. Where is the art of life,

One could say that the whole complex of a Mullah story mirrors back to us deep tendencies of our mind or behavior that we may not have known we had. These impressions, or “voices,” lie buried in our nafs (similar to the subconscious). So when we recognize ourselves in a story, the laughter disarms and hopefully illuminates a part of our inner self.

Rather than add to our storehouse of learned information, these stories help us “unlearn” and break down the neurotic, mental-emotional patterns that protect our false sense of who we are. As we go beyond these boundaries, we may find ourselves in the province of wild nature. We discover an inner landscape, less controlled yet richer than that of o

Jesus said it best in the Gospels. When asked by his disciples why he didn't simply say clearly what he was talking about, the master responded that one part of our heart-mind can hear things directly—it stays in the territory illuminated by light's straight lines. Another, deeper part lingers in the darkness and understands only by coming to its o

could speak to the jinn [the ones we call genies]

Yet if mere self-improvement were the goal, why tell stories when we have so many valuable self-help methods to transform our psyche and consciousness? The further we go into the “self,” the more we find that logical systems don't help very much.