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Summary: Still Reading It, Again
Review: Knowing How to Know seems like a library of wisdom distilled into a guidebook, essentialized like the packets of dehydrated stroganoff you might take on a camping trip. Open the page and add the "water" of the reader's attention, and there is nutrition there, of one kind or another. A lot to digest, the book bears reading and rereading.
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Summary: Begs The Question
Review: One can spend years, even decades, trying to understand Idries Shah's books. Because they require that level of commitment, this begs the question of whether those who understand them well enough to recommend them to others are not doing so because of the time spent rather than the insights gained. Although I believe many of Shah's insights are useful, some even essential, I now believe most are more readily available from psychological literature, unencumbered by both the "mind game" issues as well as certain underlying and unproven assumptions consistently promoted in Shah's works. These include the ideas that one can usefully apply psychological insights to gaining "higher knowledge" of life's eternal questions, and that Sufism is itself the means by which such questions may be answered. After long years of exposure to these materials, I now possess certain beliefs rather than certain knowledge. I therefore can't recommend them wholeheartedly.
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Summary: Crisp guidance for life
Review: Shah frequently prescribes a dose of humility and self assessment, which can be uncomfortable since they tend to deflate the ego - mine anyway. But along with such correctives Shah also serves up thought provoking, disarming humor and many excellent lessons for conducting a productive life. The entry on Pashtun sayings is a riveting blend of practical country wisdom (with many touches of humor) and profound observations on the mind, spirit, and society. This is a great book.
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Summary: Profound, uncompromising especially useful for idealists.
Review: Shah' most recent book, as usual uncompromising and profound especially with multipal readings. I found his section dealing with different generations of social thought illuminating and rare. As with his other books it takes time to digest the more difficult passages. Refreshingly free of New Age soft soap. Social reformers would benifit from its study.
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Summary: Fantastic & Lucid
Review: Shines a spotlight on your personality and soul
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Summary: The problems which prevent people from learning.
Review: So many barriers to human understanding are detailed in this book with both clarity and conciseness that it is difficult to summarize its contents in so many words. Sufi psychology may tell us more than what we want to know about ourselves, but usually tells us no less than what we really need to know.
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Summary: Teaching man to see himself as he really is
Review: Ted Hughes once referred to the Sufis as probably "the biggest society of sensible men there has ever been on earth". During his lifetime, Idries Shah, who died in November 1996, published over 30 books containing Sufi teaching materials presented in a format suitable for the needs of modern Western society. Using extracts from the classical Sufi masters, teaching tales, personal observation and responses to questions asked by students and correspondents, he made it his task to take the romance, and the rubbish, out of our ideas of spiritual development. Knowing How to Know" is Shah's first posthumous work. The title refers back to "Learning How to Learn", an earlier volume in which he outlined the factors inhibiting the learning process which is an indispensible part of human development. "Knowing How to Know" describes the complex of human characteristics which prevent our perceiving that knowledge is not the reward of virtue, but the unvarnished truth about the human condition.Sufism is not about making people feel good; it is about making people see themselves as they are really are, and "Knowing How to Know" is not a book for the faint-hearted, or for those who prefer not to examine their own motivations and assumptions. But for those who are prepared to invest a measure of effort and to let go of their prejudices, it is a rich and rewarding book, and one which may permanently change their way of thinking about the world.
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Summary: Provocative journey into the human heart
Review: The back cover reads: 'Like an ultra-violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals patterns, normally invisible to our customary modes of thought'. This is an ideal description for the masterful collection of essays contained in Knowing how to Know. Shah describes that before learning can take place certain conditions and essential factors must be in place. This book is a treasure-house of provocative and challenging ideas which, when studied with the appropriate measure of sincerity, can provide a foundation for further study. Idries Shah has always had a way to get unusual ideas to seep past our vigilant defences. Things are not always what they seem at first glance, as continued study of this book may demonstrate. Here is maybe his most penetrating book- one that has helped me see simple but effective barriers that keep me locked into rigid, comfortable frameworks.
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Summary: Improve your thinking
Review: The book is exceptionally concentrated. Innocent paragraphs may reveal important meanings normally concealed from normal experience. Attentive reading combined with careful observations may contribute to produce important revelations about yourself and the world. The result is an enrichment of perceptions and more sophisticated patterns of thought. This book can help discover hidden aspects of human nature, including the social aspects of daily life. It provides important clues to recognize certain pitfalls in day-to-day living. The material cannot be absorbed in one reading though. Like powerful medicines it must be taken drop by drop, with a proper rest in between. Like other Sufi material it is intended to operate in "layers". Each reading removes certain barriers to understanding, thereby exposing something previously concealed from view. This book provides an overall picture of Sufism not often seen elsewhere and it has the potential to "activate" undigested information. Those unfamiliar with the author or contemporary Sufism will be amazed by the quality of thinking and will probably want more.
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Summary: Agree or disagree, much food for thought...
Review: The word "Sufi" still elicits a range of reactions from the mystified to the parochial to the impractical, and you will likely view this book accordingly, unless you actually read it. In a curious way, it assumes that you are seeking an understanding of your motivations, and of life in general, as if "Sufi" were an everyday preoccupation. Yet, without attempting to define "Sufi" in any direct way, "Knowing How to Know" will likely challenge your assumptions regarding most any approach to knowledge that you have ever undertaken.If this book is to be believed, any real increase in understanding requires fundamental changes in characteristic patterns of our thinking, patterns of which we are typically unaware. However, the complexity of our minds means that each of us has unique needs that must be satisfied before effective changes in our thinking can occur. The process is not hit or miss, but involves human operations as precise as any required in the physical sciences, including all of the elements of love, action, and attention to which we are appropriately disposed. "Knowing How to Know" lays out, in very stark terms, just how we might hope to apply these necessary requirements to aquire deeper, broader, and higher knowledge in our own lives.
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