Life is what it is, you cannot change it; but you can always change yourself.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
In Sufi terms the crushing of the ego is called Nafs Kushi [ nafs: self, ego; kushi: literally starve, figuratively denial, privation — Muiz ]. And how do we crush it? We crush it by sometimes taking ourselves to task. When the self says, ‘O no, I must not be treated like this,’ then we say, ‘What does it matter?’ When the self says, ‘They ought to have done this, they ought to have said that,’ we say, ‘What does it matter, either this way or that way? Every person is what they are; you cannot change them, but you can change yourself.’ That is the crushing. … It is only in this way that we can crush our ego.
Every time that we notice its pinprick, every time that its thorns appear before our eyes, we should crush it and say, ‘What are you? Are you not thorns, are you not the cause of unhappiness for others and myself as well? I do not want to see my own being in such a form, in the form of thorns! I want my being to be turned into a rose, that I may bring happiness, pleasure, and comfort to others.’ If there is anything needed in spiritual teaching, in seeking truth, in self-realization, it is the refinement of the ego. For the same ego which begins by being our worst enemy, will in the end, if developed and cultivated and refined, become our best friend.
[ Approaching this training of the nafs/ego with less violent terminology than crushing or killing it is more in line with our current understandings of effective psychological and spiritual practice. This kinder and more compassionate approach is also mentioned by Hazrat Inayat Khan at the end of the last sentence above — “if developed and cultivated and refined …”. This perspective and viewpoint of development, cultivation, and refinement is also in line with historical Sufi understandings of the nature an structure of the ego and how to work with it. The nafs is also described as a spectrum of different stages, or octaves of vibration, rather than it being a single, static thing, state, stage, or experience.
This spectrum runs from extremely dense, compacted, opaque, binary, and exclusionary, called nafs-i ammara … mostly darkness and very little light, completely selfish, self-centered and self-involved, relating to everything outside of itself as “other” to be used for its own interests and purposes, with no acknowledgment of the Being-ness of others, operating from the so-called “lizard-brain”, mechanically, reactively, instinctively, no capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism, always in survival, fight or flight mode;
Through various increasing degrees of expansion, inclusion, refinement and translucency: nafs-i lawwama and nafs-i mutma’inna … various mixtures of darkness and of light, coarseness and refinement, exclusion and inclusion, selfishness and selflessness, beginning to experience Life and “self” above the mind-mesh;
To complete and full transparency, expansion, inclusion: nafs-i salima … all light, love, peace, selflessness, experiencing the Unity within and without, the stage of the awakened souls, living fully above the mind-mesh, and yet still able to operate within that limited realm without losing awareness of the larger perspective.
In the written literature, there are also expanded descriptions of the stages that enumerate 5, and even 7 stages, rather than the 4 described here. But the important point is that the development of nafs is a spectrum with one stage transforming into the next based on how expanded and transparent the nafs structure has become. So there isn’t any annihilation, or killing, or crushing of the nafs in the sense that often arises from the use of that terminology but rather a mystical and alchemical transmutation of the denser aspects into the more refined and transparent. What falls away, or dies, in this process is the false, limited, and distorted/distorting ideas, concepts, beliefs, and projections.
And we need to remember that progress is not strictly linear, the way that describing the 4 stages in sequence might suggest. The various parts and aspects of our consciousness move, grow, and evolve at different speeds. Like Life in general, it’s often all happening simultaneously, as our awareness shifts from one identity to another, to another. At times the identity in the “driver’s seat” is nafs-i mutma’inna, sometimes nafs-i ammara, sometimes nafs-i lawwama, and every once in a while, the transcendent aspect of nafs-i salima puts in an appearance. — Muiz ]
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Human Evolution )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
From the spiritual point of view this Life is infinite, subject to neither change nor influence of finite forces. It has its characteristics which have been enumerated or described by humanity, but this Life is more than its characteristics. It can never be changed; it can never be ended; it is eternal in every direction. Ya Hayy!
From the outer point of view, what is called life is the result of the composite Karma of all creatures working in the sphere of the higher form or mode of Life. That is to say, there is Life, which is entirely separated from the sphere of Limitation, and there is life in the bosom of which there is the action and reaction of all the minute forces of creation. Out of the second form of life comes darkness, tribulation, night, and all evil, but the higher Life is never affected by it, any more than the sun is destroyed by fog.