These conversations answer questions about the Sufi tradition. One section is dedicated entirely to Shah’s theory on the human need to give and receive attention. Experts have praised Shah’s book as essential to guard against much of the nonsense in the spiritual marketplace.

Learning How to Learn contains more than a hundred tales and extracts, ranging from the 8th century Hasan of Basra to today’s Ustad Khalilullah Khalili. These tales are woven into Shah’s narratives of how and why the Sufis learn, what they learn, and how spiritual understanding may be developed, as well as how it inevitably deteriorates in all societies.

Shah draws from more than 70,000 questions, from Afghanistan, California, Delhi and Strasbourg, asked by housewives, cabinet ministers, philosophy professors and assembly-line workers, on current human, social and spiritual problems.

He quotes Eastern parables of Jesus, the ancient Sufi classics, contemporary encounters with teachers and students, the Mulla Nasrudin teaching-figure, Omar Khayyam and Western mass-circulation journals.

Many of the concepts which Shah introduced – including: the vital role of the right time, place and company of higher studies, the very concept of ‘Learning How to Learn’ and the instrumental, specialised function of ordinarily performed exercises and rituals – have recently been widely copied by psychologists.

Introduction

1. REAL AND IMAGINED STUDY
Sufis and Their Imitators
Attaining Knowledge
Secrets and the Sufis
When to Have Meetings
The Ceiling
Conflicting Texts
Self-Deception
Journeys to the East
What a Sufi Teacher Looks Like
Books and Beyond Books
Saintliness
Secrecy
‘You Can’t Teach by Correspondence’
Background to ‘Humility’
How Serious Is the Student?
Social and Psychological Elements in Sufi Study

2. ON ATTENTION
Characteristics of Attention and Observation
Operation of the Attention Factor
Motivation of Transactions
Attention under Personal Control
Excess and Deprivation of Attention
Study of People and Ideas apart from their Attention Value
Identification of Underlying Factors
Raising the Emotional Pitch
Fossil Indicators

3. SUFI STUDY THEMES
Assumptions Behind Actions
Exercising Power through Kindness
Copying Virtue
Finding a Teacher
What Is Gained from Repetition
Robes and Apparatus of the Sufi
Why You Are Asked to Help
Laziness

4. THINGS OF THE WORLD
An Eastern Sage and the Newspapers
Basis for People’s Interest
Thinking in Terms of Supply-and-Demand
The Effect of Tales and Narratives
Stories of the Miraculous
Continuous versus Effective Activity
Capacity Comes before Opinion
Sanctified Greed
Psychic Idiots
When Criticism Can Stop
Information and Experience
The Teaching is a Matter of Conduct
Knowing One’s Own Sincerity
The Would-Be and Should-Be people
Satisfactions and Purpose of Ritual
Real and Ostensible Self-Improvement
Roles of Teacher and Student

5. ACTION AND MEANING
Real and Relative Generosity
Why Do Sufis Excel?
Confusion as a Personal Problem
Being a ‘Guru’
Systems
The Vehicle and the Objective
Concern and Campaign
Use, Misuse and Disuse of Forms of Study
Potentiality and Function
Conditioning and Education
The Search for an Honest Man
How Can One Method Be as Good as Another?

6. TWENTY-THREE STUDY POINTS
A Viable Unit
Being Supported
Being Physically Present
Intensely Standardised
Organisations and Greed
Generosity as a Greed
What You Do for Yourself
Graduating to a Higher Morality
Concluding that We Are Worthless
That which Attracts You about Us…
Giving and Withholding – and External Assessment
Standing between You and Knowledge
Direct Contact with a Source of Knowledge
Latent Knowledge
Provoking Capacity
Systematic Study
Consistency and System
Illumination and Information
Habit of Judging
Higher-Level Work
Games and Annoyance
Aspirations and Acquisition
Opinion and Fact

7. OVERALL STUDY
Learning and Non-Learning
Some Characteristics of Sufi Literature
Impartiality as a Point of View
Characteristics and Purposes of a Sufi Group
Prerequisites for a Student of Sufism
In Step Is Out Of Step
‘Dye Your Prayer-Rug with Wine’
The Master-Dyer
Method, System and Conditioning
Western Culture
The Western Tradition
How Does the Sufi Teach?
Idiot’s Wisdom
Attacking Fires
A Bridge and its Use
Deterioration of Studies
Community and Human Growth
The Value of Question and Answer Sessions
Dedication, Service, Sincerity
Sufis and Scholars
An Enterprise Is Measured by Intention,
Not by Appearance
Sufi Organisations

8. SUFI STUDIES
Coming Together
Concealment of Shortcomings
Saints and Heroes
The Levels of Service
Ritual and Practice
To Be Present
The Way to Sufism
The Giving of Charity
The Number of Readings of a Book
Decline in Religious Influence
Why Can’t We Have a British Karakul Lamb?
Teaching Methods and Prerequisites
Sorrow in ‘Spiritual Enterprises’
Shock-Teaching
Emotional Expectations
Jumping to Conclusions
The Rosary and the Robe
Random Exercises
On the Lines of a School
Conduct-Teaching
The Curriculum of a School
Knowing All About Someone
Remarks upon the Matter of the Dervish Path
Meetings, Groups, Classes
Internal Dimensions
Explanation

Idries Shah was born in India in 1924 into an aristocratic Afghan family. He was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition and is considered one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century.

Shah devoted his life to collecting, translating and adapting key works of Sufi classical literature for the needs of the West. Called by some 'practical philosophy' - these works represent centuries of Sufi and Islamic thought aimed at developing human potential. His best-known works include the seminal book The Sufis, several collections of teaching stories featuring the ‘wise fool’ Nasrudin, Reflections and Knowing How to Know.

Shah's corpus - over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and cultural studies - have been translated into two dozen languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. They are regarded as an important bridge between the cultures of East and West.