- Softcover
- Used
Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books Inc
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
Condition: Used - Good
£ 9.19
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
The Commanding Self, in Sufic terminology, is that mixture of the primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. This book was described by Shah as the key to understanding his entire corpus of work. While complete in itself as an anthology of hitherto unpublished work, it serves to illustrate and amplify Idries Shah's preceding books on the Sufi Way.In its introduction, he writes, 'Thousands of books and monographs have been written on Sufism and the Sufis, almost all of them from the point of view of other ways of thinking. The result has been chaos in the literature, and confusion in the reader. Over the centuries, some of the world's most eminent scholars have fallen into the trap of trying to examine, access or consider the Sufi phenomenon through a set of culture-bound preconceptions.'.
Seller Inventory # CIN1784791628G
- Title
- The Commanding Self
- Author
- Idries Shah
- Publisher
- ISF Publishing
- Publication year
- 2019
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1784791628
- ISBN 13
- 9781784791629
‘The Commanding Self’ is the Sufi technical term for the false personality, that mixture of survival reflexes and conditioned responses, common to all of us, which inhibit and distort human progress and understanding.
Idries Shah’s The Commanding Self is a collection of tales, anecdotes, letters, lectures, and question-and-answer sessions that highlight one of the fundamental barriers in the Sufi developmental process: the false self.
Upon the book’s publication, Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing described this false personality as also “made up of what a culture puts into a person--parents, schools, the zeitgeist.”
Shah states that in genuine mystical traditions there is no intention of destroying or undermining the Commanding Self. Instead, would-be students are encouraged to “divert vanity from the spiritual arena ... to channel the Commanding Self’s activities to any worldly ambition: while continuing to study the Sufi Way in a modest and non-self-promoting manner”.
The Commanding Self enables readers to observe the functioning of their own emotional and conditioned responses. The book was described by Shah as the key to understanding his entire corpus of work.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books Inc
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
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