Our bodily appetites take us away from our heart’s desire; our heart’s desires keep us away from the abode the soul.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
There are two parts in humanity. One part is our external self, which the soul has borrowed from the earth; and the other part is our real self, which belongs to our Source. In other words an individual is a combination of spirit and matter, a current which runs from above and attracts to it the earth from below, shaping it in order to make it a vehicle. The human body is nothing but a vehicle of the soul which has come from above and has taken the human body as its abode. Thus an individual has two aspects of being: one is the soul, the other is the body. … Whether we are in the forest or amidst the world’s strife, our soul is always capable of rising to the greatest heights, if only we wish to attain to them. … We do not need to trouble about what is lacking outside, for in reality all is within.
The soul cannot see itself; it sees what is round it, it sees that in which it functions; and so it enjoys the comforts of the shell which is around it, and experiences the pains and discomforts which belong to the shell. And in this way it becomes an exile from the land of its birth, which is the Being of God, which is Divine Spirit; and it seeks consciously or unconsciously once again the peace and happiness of home. God therefore is not the goal but the abode of the soul, its real self, its true being.
Plato wrote that we live in a shadow world, where we confuse the shadow of ourselves with reality. This is the Nafs, the false ego, which stands in the light before God, causing, so to speak, a spiritual eclipse. … The Nafs turns us from the One to the many, enticing us with the things of this world. Then we attach ourselves to one thing after another, which brings, at best, momentary satisfaction. Through their spiritual practices the Sufis learn to chain the Nafs, to perceive that it is only a shadow of Reality; and finding the Sun of Truth within their being, looking upon it, they are no longer aware of the shadow. Then the Nafs is not destroyed, but harnessed. The whole of their being is attuned to God and everything within them serves God.
( from Githa II, Dhyana 2” [unpublished] )
The one and only thing that hinders us from advancing spiritually, or at least from advancing towards the goal for which we are destined and which we are longing to attain, is this: that the mind is so absorbed by the demands and wants of the physical body that it has hardly a moment to give itself entirely to the reflection of the Light of the Soul.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Master Mind )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The first of these lessons is easy to understand yet difficult to attain. For among the desires of the body are not only those lusts which seem to drag us downward, but even more so the great attractions of life — pleasant music, scenery, art, poetry, handsome people. There is in them the essence of Ideal, the true nature of Ideal. It can even be said that the very lusts of humanity are shadows of good things, and it is due to the warped nature and sway of the nufs in darkness that brings such frustration about. But for the most part it is clear to the mureed that the sway of the bodily appetites hold one back from one’s heart’s desire, and one learns from Murshid the means to eradicate their dominance from one’s system.
The desires of the heart are more subtle. Is not beauty desirable? Are not beautiful things desirable? Do we not need objects or thoughts in which to express the inmost being of the soul? Yes, we may need objects for the inmost expression, but there is another aspect of life which is neither expression nor suppression which comes when God fulfills the Divine Purpose in the human, which of itself is the very fulfillment of humanity’s purpose in Life.
Even the highest ideal, the greatest harmony, the most valuable things in the Universe, one must be willing to sacrifice if one is to find the true Spiritual Life, the life of God in God. For that, one cannot stop even with heart, which stands as a globe over the soul; for in heart there is not full completion of Unity. Until all desires have amalgamated into the desire for God, the soul’s desire to return to its source, the object of the journey has not been attained.