THE TYRANT WITHIN
It is
reported - and Allah knows best - that Rabia al-Adawiyyah, a
friend of God - may Allah be pleased with her - said, "May
Allah steal from you all that steals you from
Him."
The central tenet of Islamic psychology - as all
traditional spirituality - is that within each of us lives
an inner tyrant, the false ego. This is the false idea we
form of ourselves, the self-identity that we cherish beyond
all else, that empty illusion that calls itself "I". In
Islam it is called the "nafs" (self) or, more exactly, the
"nafs amarra", the "commanding nafs", the "commanding self",
the "tyrant self", the "ruling ego." Islamic spiritual
discipline consists of arresting control from the "nafs
amarra" and instead submitting to Allah, the Real. The nafs,
we must realise, is an illusion. Only Allah is the Real. The
nafs are false. Allah is True. The claims made by the nafs
are baseless. They claim, for example, that we are
self-sufficent, independent creatures. This is a lie. In
fact, our every breath is by the grace of God and we are
utterly, completely dependent upon Him.
Islam employs several metaphors to describe the inner
struggle against the commanding nafs. For example, the nafs
are represented as an idol that we must smash. We make an
idol of our egos. We are all enthralled by self-love and
self-worship. We all think we are too good to die. We must
smash this false idol and turn instead to the true God.
It is
reported - and Allah knows best - that Abul Qasim
al-Qushayri, a friend of God - may Allah be pleased with him
- said, "The spiritual warrior is he who breaks an idol; and
the idol of each person is his ego."
Otherwise, the struggle against the nafs is presented as
an inner "holy war" or jihad against the infidel within.
According to a famous hadith of the Holy Prophet - may peace
be upon him - when he returned from a desert squirmish
against hostile tribes he said, "We have returned from the
lesser holy war to the greater holy war, which is the war
against ourselves." He is also reported to have said, "The
most excellent jihad is for the conquest of yourself."
Islamic spirituality is combative. We must wage war upon
this falso ego - the inner tyrant - and subdue it in the
Name of God. Another metaphor is that of forgetfulness. The
nafs lulls us into a state of forgetfulness. We forget who
and what we are. We live in a dream of fond falsehoods.
transfixed by the nafs, we forget God. Thus we must struggle
to awaken to Reality and to bring ourselves into a state of
remembrance.
In truth, we cannot forever avoid this struggle. The
whole of the human narrative is a struggle against the false
ego. We might postpone it even until we are dead in our
graves but even then - especially then! - we will be
confronted with this greatest of human delusions and too
late realise our folly. Too late we realise that we have
been in love with a fading dream.
It is
reported - and Allah knows best - that Rabia al-Adawiyyah, a
friend of God - may Allah be pleased with her - said, "Your
life is the only opportunity that life can give you. If you
ignore it, if you waste it, you will only turn to
dust."
To those who misunderstand this philosophy the struggle
against the nafs seems like an exercise in self-hatred.
Nothing could be further from the truth. So long as we are
ruled by our nafs we are nothing but dust and dung.
Submitting to our nafs is self-destructive and self-hating
and a gross underestimation of who and what we are and of
our place and purpose in Creation. When we surrender to God
it is our nafs that tells us that we are "losing" and
"renouncing" everything - in fact what we are gaining is
infinitely greater than anything we are giving up. It only
seems as though we are "losing" something - but what we are
losing is an illusion, a mirage, a lie, a mist of vanity. We
fear surrendering our desires. We fear we will suffer from
it. We fear losing the ego. That is its very nature. It
feeds on fear. The path requires courage and persistence and
faith. The struggle against the nafs is the work of a
lifetime and the whole purpose of religion. If a Muslim is
not engaged in this inner struggle then he is not praying to
Allah, he is merely banging his head upon the floor like a
robot.
It is
reported - and Allah knows best - that Jalaluddin al-Rumi, a
friend of God - may Allah be pleased with him - said, "All
your suffering comes from desiring things that cannot be
had. Stop desiring and you won't suffer."
Those who are especially devoted to this struggle and who
wish to make real progress should join the company of the
Sufis, for this is the whole purpose of Sufism. In the 15th
C. Sheihk Ahmad Zarruq - may Allah be pleased with him -
defined Sufism as "a science whose objective is the
reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else
but God." The great obstacle to us achieving this is our own
ego, our own false sense of self. The saint, Ja'far Al-Sadiq, a friend of God - may
Allah be pleased with him - said, "In the death of the self
lies the life of the heart." And Ansari - may Allah
be pleased with him - said, "When you lose yourself, you
find the Beloved. There is no other secret. I don't know any
more than this." This is the single message of all the
saints and sages of Islam. The great Rumi - may Allah be
pleased with him - said it plainly: "If you could get rid
of yourself just once the secret of secrets would open to
you."
You should not under-estimate the cunning of the nafs.
The nafs have countless disguises. The most cunning disguise
is that of the pious believer. Too often we struggle to
maintain our religious practices and as soon as we start to
make progress we become proud and congratulate ourselves on
how spiritual and pious we have become. This is the nafs
re-grouping and turning even your religion into the
self-flattery of the ego. We need the guidance of those who
have succesfully conquered the inner tyrant. Consider these
wisdom traditions:
It is
reported - and Allah knows best - that Rabia al-Adawiyyah
al-Adawiyyah, a friend of God - may Allah be pleased with
her - said, "I seek forgiveness from Allah for the lack of
my sincerity when I say I seek the forgiveness of
Allah."
It is reported - and
Allah knows best - that Jalaluddin al-Rumi, a friend of God
- may Allah be pleased with him - said, "The lion is most
handsome when looking for food."
It is reported - and
Allah knows best - that Ibn Abbas, a friend of God - may
Allah be pleased with him - said, "Mistakes are often
delightful to the minds that follow them."
EXERCISE
If you want to
identify your "commanding nafs" do the following
exercise:
Sit perfectly
still.
Concentrate on
your breath.
Remain thus,
in silence, for an hour.
Watch your
thoughts.
Do not
participate in any of your thoughts. Just watch them,
observe them.
When your mind
says to you, "Your cheek is itchy. Scratch it!" do not act.
Just obvserve that thought.
When your mind
says, "Enough! You don't need to do this for an hour. What
does it prove?" do not act. Just obvserve that thought.
Start to
observe the operations of your mind. Do not act. Do not
respond. Just observe.
Soon enough
you will be observing the "commanding nafs" and watching its
tricks...
A PARABLE BY RUMI
Here is a famous parable by
Rumi:
One went to the
door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice said: Who is there?
He answered: It is I. The voice said: There is no room here
for me and thee. And the door was shut. After a year of
solitude and deprivation this man returned to the door of
the Beloved. He knocked. A voice from within said: Who is
there? The man said: It is Thou. The door opened.
