Talk:Nafs
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[edit] Merging with Lataif-e-sitta
Oppose: I oppose the intended merging of the article with Lataif-e-sitta as it may lead to the loss of clarity of the concept, resulting in the article becoming too confusing. --Doc sameer 00:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- I agree, and also oppose the merge... I think this article could easily be expanded. See User talk:Cacahuate#Articles nominated for deletion for background on the merge proposal – cacahuate talk 03:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Request for advice
Hi,
I could change this language to be more "neutral" and still keep the information/elaboration, but I am not sure it is suitable for a the page (new to wiki postings). So, please advise if this sort of information/elaboration would be useful to the page or even allowed on the page. Thank you. Oriontriquetra 22:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
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The word NAFS is usually translated as "ego" in English and only sometimes translated as "soul". Neither word seems related so it is natural to ask how they are both accurate translations.
The result of the pure SPIRIT (RUH) mixing with the material form (clay) or physical body RESULTS in the creation of the NAFS. NAFS is perfectly natural, the RESULT of two things mixing. Put salt in water and you get brine or brackish water. Great for cooking rice, not so great for drinking. If you say you want to drink brackish water, your friend might advise against it saying this is a bad drink (ego). If you want to boil rice in it, that same friend might say this is an excellent use (soul).
So, when two substances are really mixed up together and not separable, then the result is sometimes good and sometimes bad depending on many things like time, place, function and use.
This is a mixture that you cannot separate. So, bad actions or negative actions are called egotistical and good or positive actions are called soulful. But it is all a guess at the end of the day. A guess because, when drinking or cooking in salt water, can you see or taste what part is salt and what part is water?
Teachers are like a special viewing/tasting machines. They let you use them to "see/taste" EXACTLY what part of you is salt (material) and what part of you is water (spirit). In these situations of "hal" (transitory spiritual experineces) the guide will give you an opportunity to isolate the water (spirit/ruh) and get a good look/taste/feel for it so that you can eventually completely separate the salt from the water.
To elaborate further;
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_water
Water salinity based on dissolved salts in parts per thousand (‰) Fresh water Brackish water Saline water Brine
< 0.5 ‰ 0.5 - 30 ‰ 30 - 50 ‰ > 50 ‰
Human beings are born as fresh water, become brackish in their teen years, saline in their twenties and often end up as brine.
To refine the previous analogy, the Guide operates a filter to help you distinguish the water from the salt.
If one does not have a Guide, then you can operate the filter yourself, the filter being the Shariat or the Law (in the Torah).
Without the Law (filter) or a Guide (professional operator) of the Law (filter), and if you really want to purify the water from the salt, you are forced to use your own, limited methods (ie no high tech filter or operator). So you might boil the water, capture the steam and then reduce the steam again to purified water.
In general, people and groups bicker over each other’s relative saltiness, when REALLY only the brine(rs) and the fresh water(ers) are easily discussed. The brackish(ers) and the saline(rs) have percentages that are always in flux, and so, whatever they say this minute might not hold true later, when there is more or less saltiness.
A Completed Man (insan e kamel) has himself been purified of all salt elements. That is why it is very difficult to “taste” his teaching after the body dies. Also why the body is often trampled (killing the prophets etc). When the body dies, the last illusion of saltiness is gone from the scene. It is also why there is so much dispute over what the meaning of various teachings may be or might have been. Individuals who are salty attribute all sorts of saltiness to these Completed Men. They may even attribute saltiness to the filter. In turn, the Completed (Purified) Men understand the misconceptions and misperceptions of the masses because they once were salty as well.
________________________ SECOND ELABORATION________________________
Like being on that Persian Carpet that is as large as a soccor field. If you are standing at a certain point, you will trace a line in front of you and a line (or lines) behind you. But if you are suspended above the carpet, you see that the lines didn't "go forward" or "go backward", they were part of a lovely pattern. The higher you go, the more you appreciate the design and intricate patterns that the lines trace.
Refining the Nafs is the interplay between experience of repetitious pattern and ever new creation is similar to contemplating the transcendence and the imminence of Allah. On one hand Allah is completely known and knowable through the Names. On the other, the essence (zad?) is beyond any created being's ability to know. Like so many things in Islam, we cannot say that either is "the Truth", they are both True. It is our journey to experience this contradiction presented to the intellect.
1. At the coarse level, we are laying on the carpet and we see no pattern, no design, no "master work". The touch, smell and sight is so overwhelming to the senses that we have only the coarsest experience of the carpet.
2. If we manage to rise to our knees, we will see a pattern. We will see ourselves as part of the pattern and others as part of the pattern. We will see repetition, the carpet's repetition, our own repetition and others' repetition. This is the compare and contrast process. We might regret our previous, limited view of things.
3. If we manage to rise to our feet, we might get a glimpse of a "break in the pattern". We revise our previous assumptions that "this was repetitious and predictable". As we get higher, or moving here and there, perhaps jumping, we see more and more breaks. But we mix up the breaks and the patterns. Our eyes are not accustomed to this view so we are confused.
4. If we grow some wings to move higher, we see that it really was not a break at all. It was a non repeating form. A fractal form... organic form that was masquerading as a repeating pattern. We see that it really doesn't matter how we describe this carpet because the words don't match the beauty of the pattern/non pattern, fractal movement.
5. From a yet higher perspective, and better flying skills, the person is not "standing on the carpet" or "viewing the carpet from above, he is the carpet. And he sees that others are the carpet as well. What he thought were colored/dyed threads were actually other souls. He tries to look at "himself" but his threads are intertwined with all the other threads. So he cannot distinguish himself from "others".
6. He moves higher experiences himself as the "whole" carpet. But he can see the edge of the carpet and experiences that the carpet is constantly being added to. It is growing...as he is growing.
Finally, at the end, the man is in sync with the ever expanding creation. This is the only point that we can say that there is "movement". Prior to this, all movement was an illusion. Nothing had "moved" nothing had "changed", it was only the ability of the man to perceive that "moved" and "changed". At the same time, at the outer edges, there was continuous movement and continuous change, but it was out of the range, vision and experience of the man. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oriontriquetra (talk • contribs) 22:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
