A Perfumed Scorpion consists of unusually straightforward statements of what the Sufi path is all about. It can't be described in just so many words because the path consists of knowledge coming from experience that can only be achieved as one develops the capacity for it. The attitudes and abilities needed to approach and pursue Sufi learning are described. And Shah always makes it understood that a teacher is needed. You can't really do it alone. This is pithy material and not for the faint hearted. For instance, Shah quotes a Sufi teacher saying, "If you want to be owned by a tyrant, accept someone who only imagines he is a pupil." What's going on, here? Is this a put-down or is Shah passing on a helpful and practical observation? He goes on to describe the type of teacher who "feels a need to teach". Then he adds another saying, "Patience is the food of understanding." He Says, "Sufi knowledge is the knowledge of something beyond customary human perceptions, yet reached through the very world whose characteristics often stand in the way of such perceptions. This could well be a summary of the theory and practice of the Sufis." He quotes from John Donne's sermons, "I neglect God and his angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door." He interprets this, not as melancholy irony but, surprisingly, as a hint that such distractions can be used, "in this prison of dimensions, to get beyond these dimensions." He says, "Truth seeks you totally. Make sure that you really seek it." This book is a mind-blower. And even if you are not of a mind to take up the Sufi path - the Tarika - to understand the gentleness and power of what is involved can be seen as a real gift. |
