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Would you become a doctor by just reading books? Would you be able to make a surgery?The answer is clear. It is the same for us. We can read Qur'an. But we need a person to make us understand how to build our lifes on Qur'an. You can try to destroy your ego. But without guidance you would completely lost your path. They are the candles who enlighten and show us the path. You can try to do everything Rumi told. But you would find yourself at lost. Because Rumi didn't become Rumi in a day.Also, Before fana fi rasool, you need to annihilate yourself in your Sheikh and then your Pir(Turkish word). Fana fi rasool comes after these two. First, you need to annihilate yourself in your teacher(who shows you the path). Then you need to annihilate yourself in the people who started that path which your teacher teaches to you. After that you need to annihilate yourself in the Prophet whom all paths lead you to. After that you need to annihilate yourself in Allah.

In İslam, there is a path to Allah as much as the numbers of the people who lived. But why do we have different paths? Because we are different from each other in many ways and we should go from the path that is the easiest and best for every one of us.

How do we decide on who is the teacher? Why is Prophet is much more important from others?In İslam, you can think all of us as cups. Some cups are much bigger than others. Or you can think of as mirrors. As we clean ourselves from ego all of them would show us the sun but the sizes of mirrors and their shapes are different from each other(same for the cups). Some might show only a finger tip and some might be huge. The teacher is the person who fullfilled his/her cup or cleaned his/her mirror no matter how his/her cup or mirror is. Because only the one who fullfilled can overflow to the other cups. Teacher also should know the type of my mirror/cup because if I am not from his/her type than he shouldn't let me go with that teacher's path and he should advise me to find another path.The prophet Muhammed(Peace bu upon him) has the biggest and the most beautiful cup/mirror among all of us. And every water that comes to our cup is the ones being overflowed by his cup because he takes it from the source. Rumi also has really big cup and his cup is fullfilled and overflows. Your teacher's cup also fullfilled and he takes from the ones overflowed from Rumi's and then same water overflows from his cup and comes to you.You might have a huge potential but if your cup isn't fullfilled than you still have a long way to go. Someone else might have a little cup but if his cup overflows he can teach others. My teacher's cup might be smaller than mine but it doesn't matter if mine isn't fullfilled.Let's explain it a little more. In sufism, there are ways like Mevlevi(Rumi's Path), Naqshi(Naqshibendi's Path), Qadiri(Abdulqadir's Path) and many others. These people are who had huge potentials and fullfilled it. They also had teachers so why do they have a new name for their paths? You might think of it as an answer for what happens if someone have a bigger cup than his teacher or the founder of the pathe he followed.

To explain fana fillah, I will use something I read from Rumi. Let's assume I poured a 1 kg honey into the sea. If we were to weight it we would find that sea has 1 more kg than it was. But would that 1 kg honey really make any difference in sea? No, because it is nothing when we compare it with sea. That is how it is. For fana fillah, you need to do as the prophet said "Die before your death". You need to love Allah so much that you wouldn't able to see yourself anymore. You can think of it as a lover who only sings and talks about his loved one and don't aware of about what he wears or how he seems or how he is anymore. Everything would remember his love to him. He would see his love in everywhere he looks so much that he doesn't see anything else anymore. That is how it is. After fana fillah, there is beka billah. That means finding life with Allah. I guess it is probably what happens when that honey's atoms spread everywhere of that sea. But these things are not simple knowledge. These things are in front of us but we would be able to understand them only when we are able to understand and live according to it. And when you are at there and you have questions. To understand really well and find answers you need to read the books of these people like Rumi, Abdul Qadir Al Gaylani or Ahmad Sirhindi or other well known scholars. Because you might not know if what comes to your mind is right or wrong. You might think you understood Rumi but you might end up in a completely wrong understanding with his understanding. Therefore you need to read and understand if what you understand from "fana fillah" is the same thing with them who already show the path os is it just the devil's whispering.

It was a long answer, I hope I didn't try to answer a question that I am not capable of giving a proper answer. I think if you want to understand sufism really well, your best bet would be learning Turkish or Arabic. I am a Turkish person and we have Sharhs of Rumi's Mesnevis and well-known Turkish Sufi scholars wrote them. No one translated these huge explainings to English yet. I have only found this one little one that is translated to the English. Normally, We have Ottoman-Turkish well known Sufis who wrote these. But these huge books definitely won't be translated in the near future because we don't have that much people who can do this. You can think of the difference as a direct translation of Qur'an and interpretation of Qur'an. There is quite big difference between reading direct translations of Mesnevi and Sharh-i Mesnevis.

@Chajz - you appear to be most suited to investigate Universal Sufism that is welcoming of non-Islamic inquiries.

I'd recommend you check out the works of Robert Frager, PhD.
http://www.seekeraftertruth.com/spiritual-guidance-in-the-sufi-tradition-robert-frager/

https://www.amazon.com/Sufi-Talks-Teachings-American-Sheihk-ebook/dp/B00SKF0VB0/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1524833572&sr=1-4&keywords=robert+frager

Robert is an American Sufi Sheikh from a Jewish Background.
Also if anyone replying here cannot identify themselves as a Sufi initiate, Sheikh, or representative of a particular Sufi school of thought, it's best to take their responses to your inquiry with a grain of salt.

All the best to you.

Shamanic doesn't mean drugs though. Mi'raj was a classic shamanic journey. Some of the best books on Shamanism in Islam are not from Muslims really... the 'alien/UFO' literature is far more percipient in this regard.

This is a great book also:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shamanism-Sufism-Women-Culture-Central/dp/1780766874

Sufis tend to not have their own translation of the Quran, but their own tafasir of the Quran. That is to say, Sufis have their own exegesis on Quranic verses. My advise would be to look for different Sufi interpretations of those passages.

But if you're looking for a good translation that would be similar to a Sufi's theology, here's a good one:
https://www.amazon.com/Quran-New-Translation-Tarif-Khalidi/dp/0143105884/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1511073835&sr=8-8&keywords=quran+translation

Essential Sufism is a great place to start. It isn't so much a review of basic beliefs, but rather a collection of various writings from sufi thinkers from various places and times.

A more academic, but good overall introduction to sufism is Carl Ernst's book.

This is the best Quran for an english speaker, as far as I’m concerned.
It has everything you need and more.

https://www.amazon.com/Message-Quran-revealed-accompanied-transliteration/dp/1904510353

This books is also a great read: https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Islam-Sourcebook-Relationships-Islamic/dp/0791409147

Hi Jay. Haven't read either of those books. I am a fan of Martin Lings, having read his biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). He also wrote a book entitled What is Sufism? that seems to be highly regarded.

I think it depends highly from which perspective you are looking into it:

If you are a conservative muslim and you are searching legitimization/answers to questions and how sufism is related to traditional understandings of Islam, do not look further than: "Realities of Sufism", by Sunnipubs.

If you are not like that, but you are in search of a good introduction, not overwhelming, not too technical, then I'd say go with William C. Chitticks Sufism - A Beginner's Guide.