"Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm"
About this Quote
Insight arrives on a human timetable, not a cosmic one. Flood a room with sudden light and eyes sting shut; let the dawn unfold and vision adapts. Idries Shah, the modern Sufi teacher who popularized wisdom-through-stories, insists that awakening must be paced so the mind, emotions, and life can bear it. Truth is not only information; it is voltage. Without the circuitry to handle it, systems blow.
This perspective challenges the fantasy of instant transformation. Abrupt revelations can happen, but unintegrated shock often produces grandiosity, confusion, or paralysis. The ego defends itself, the nervous system overloads, and a person may mistake intensity for clarity. A gradual approach builds the container: ethical grounding, attentional steadiness, psychological flexibility, humility. With each small seeing, behavior adjusts, relationships reconfigure, and capacity grows to receive more.
Shah’s method embodies this principle. His teaching stories, jokes, and paradoxes deliver nutrients sublingually. Meaning seeps in sideways, bypassing resistance, and only later crystallizes as understanding. By spacing insight, he mirrors how real learning works. Cognitive science calls it chunking and spaced repetition; spiritual lineages speak of stages, veils, and ripening. Either way, the mind integrates best when demand matches readiness.
There is compassion in this pacing. People carry histories, obligations, and temperaments. A revelation that does not respect context can alienate one from work, family, or sanity. Little by little is not timidity; it is craftsmanship. The sculptor chips, steps back, and chips again, allowing the form to declare itself.
Modern culture prizes hacks and peak experiences. Shah counters with apprenticeship. Enlightenment is not a spotlight fixed forever but a steady broadening of attention, a refining of taste, a widening of heart. Overwhelm narrows; patience expands. When the light grows at the rate you can live, it not only illuminates but also warms, and what it reveals can be carried into useful action.
This perspective challenges the fantasy of instant transformation. Abrupt revelations can happen, but unintegrated shock often produces grandiosity, confusion, or paralysis. The ego defends itself, the nervous system overloads, and a person may mistake intensity for clarity. A gradual approach builds the container: ethical grounding, attentional steadiness, psychological flexibility, humility. With each small seeing, behavior adjusts, relationships reconfigure, and capacity grows to receive more.
Shah’s method embodies this principle. His teaching stories, jokes, and paradoxes deliver nutrients sublingually. Meaning seeps in sideways, bypassing resistance, and only later crystallizes as understanding. By spacing insight, he mirrors how real learning works. Cognitive science calls it chunking and spaced repetition; spiritual lineages speak of stages, veils, and ripening. Either way, the mind integrates best when demand matches readiness.
There is compassion in this pacing. People carry histories, obligations, and temperaments. A revelation that does not respect context can alienate one from work, family, or sanity. Little by little is not timidity; it is craftsmanship. The sculptor chips, steps back, and chips again, allowing the form to declare itself.
Modern culture prizes hacks and peak experiences. Shah counters with apprenticeship. Enlightenment is not a spotlight fixed forever but a steady broadening of attention, a refining of taste, a widening of heart. Overwhelm narrows; patience expands. When the light grows at the rate you can live, it not only illuminates but also warms, and what it reveals can be carried into useful action.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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