Another name for ego
At the Sufi House, I learn that the Turkish word for ego is Nafs. (Oh, why am I capitalizing it!!!) The word nafs covers a much bigger territory than our word ego, however.
Actually, there is a list of 68 nafs -- this is worse than I thought! There are many nafs that I would never have thought of. And, of course, there are the ones I know well and maybe tangle with every day.
At the Sufi House, they wouldn't say tangle with. They would say we are to train or tame our nafs.
I picked out a few of the 68 nafs to show you:
to be proud of one’s spiritual state
to show off
arrogance
envy
miserliness
to be vengeful
faithlessness
to deny the giver of gifts or to belittle the gifts
to be disatisfied and complain about one’s state
to condone tyrany and help tyrants
to speak against people
to keep the heart attached to this world
to keep wanting to be a leader
to expect approval and compliments
to fear criticism
to fawn over people for personal benefit
to be happy about disasters that fall upon people
to be a coward
to be angry
to be a tyrant
not to keep one’s word
to think unjustly about people
to love one’s property
to be overly concerned with the world and the worldly
to fear poverty
I must confess that there are a few of those that I seem to specialize in. Here are two:
to fear criticism and to expect approval and compliments
I don't know if I expect approval, but I sure like it. I love it! I thrive on it! I'd better watch it.
The one about wanting to be a leader. I think it must mean wanting to be a leader for the glory it might give, like the difference between wanting to be a movie star or wanting to act. The true leader is serving, and that's different.
I am going to guess that all of the nafs reflect some kind of attachment.
I wouldn't have thought of fear of poverty as a naf. But, when I think of it, probably all of our fears are symptomatic of attachment.
Let me know if you would like to see more of this list of nafs.
Comments
Gloria, are you sure you did not forget a zero or two? I mean, the list looks like it could easily expanded to include 680 or 6,800 nafs. But yes, it's fun and instructive to read. My own addition would be: "The nafs of wanting to train or tame our nafs."
Thousands of examples, I'm sure! Headings and sub-headings!
Beloved Jochen, you don't mean that we are to just let our egos run wild?!!!
Of course not, Señora. But I wonder whose idea the training and taming is. Who wants the nafs to be trained and tamed? God? Higher Self? Why would they bother to train an illusion? I believe it is nafs' idea, ensuring endless rounds of Snakes and Ladders.
The other night there was a travelogue on TV about a South American country, perhaps Argentina but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. The one fact and accompanying image I took away was that in a particular large city it was illegal to walk more than eight dogs at once. It showed several people at that limit. From the looks of it, the law was a good idea. Presumably they were doing it as a paying job and not for fun but who knows.
Gloria, you must be copying these naflings from some written source unless you have memorized them all. Is that source something generally available? Yes, I would like the whole list. If you tamed them eight at a time you would only have four to deal with at the end. Or five if you go by Jochen's list.
Big thumb-up, Charles.
My first thought about that city in South America was that it's perhaps b e c a u s e of the law so many people walk eight dogs.
My beloved friend Jochen, if I had 68 wild horses, it would be common sense to keep them from running wild and pulling me along. I want them to serve me rather than my having to apologize for them. I want to go to God, and I want to rein in the horses so they will not hinder me on my journey. I don't want to go wherever they might take me. It seems to be God, or it seems to be ego. I do not want to be ego-driven. It's not up to the horses of ego. It's up to me.
In some way, perhaps some of these wild horses have served me. Because I have been egotistically-over sensitive, maybe the wild horse has helped me to be more sensitive to others.
From my experience with the horses of anger running wild, maybe I can be more compassionate when others are angry. But, from my side, I don't want anger running off with me.
Maybe it's myself that I have to train!
Loving you,
Gloria
And perhaps just in highlighting them to ourselves, we bring them in front of us to acknowledge. And then keep them from going wild.
I love this conversation – as long as it doesn't get too serious. And aren't Lynda's words just beautiful?
I can understand, most dear Gloria, that no one likes to zoom about with 68 horse powers and no brakes to speak of, it's frightening. But I hear in many of the recent Heavenletters that all we need to do is to get out of that vehicle.
And the question I keep asking is, Who is it that wants to reign in ego or get rid of ego? The only answer I can think of so far is: ego.
Aha, I see, Jochen! I could be on my way to being the best ego trainer/tamer in the world! The best!!!! Okay, point well-taken. Thanks for persisting!
And, yes, Lynda's words are beautiful..
And Charles! Oh, yes! Tomorrow more nafs. Hmm, four or eight, I'm not sure!
I've seen 8 puppies walking 1 human in Buenos Aires. Maybe it was there that the documentary was about.
I have read this site for a long long time and enjoyed it very much. I am not one to respond to blogs but this subject had me itching to post lol. I think that if I spent all my time scrutinizing all my 'faults', I would be very depressed!!! I would pick myself apart and think what a terrible person I am. I used to beat myself up all the time about all the things I did and said and this feels an awful lot like that. Instead I now find myself acknowledging something as it happens and know that I am learning to do better as I go along. I am learning, I am human right now and I don't know much yet, but I am learning. And I make different choices for the next moment. It's a process, eh? Looking at that whole list all at once would make me want to not even begin to try lol. Creator wouldn't want us to focus on our faults for He/She believes we are perfect. God says to love ourselves, warts and all!!
Hugs,
Dorothy
Yes, what if we accepted and embraced it all, bringing ourselves up lovingly as we do our children (or at least our grandchildren), a suggestion here, a caution there – and lots of Heavenletters.
Chuck is drawing our attention toward an older Heavenletter of stunning power and beauty today. Whenever I see it again, it's a feeling as if slapping my forehead – My God, what am I doing here?!
With regard to our present discussion, I would say that as long as this feeling accompanies me, somewhere in the background at least, it's fun discussing the holy war on the nafs and what have you. But if I were asked to take it seriously, I'd simply not be here.
So here is from Heaven #1570, "Could the Earth Be Other Than Round?"
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Imagine a circle of light, its rays so bright your eyes cannot see the center of it. There is so much light, you cannot see where the light is coming from. All you can see is light. All you can know is that there is light, and light is. The light is so bright that you cannot differentiate anything in the light. There may not be anything to differentiate in the light that is so bright. Maybe there is nothing to see but more light, if you could see. Maybe there is nothing but light, and light is all inclusive.
Imagine that you live within this light. Imagine that you are a part of this undifferentiated light. Yet, how can you be a part of that which has no parts, no segmentation, no spots, no dots, nothing but simply fulminating light, surging and rolling like waves, light having a good time, light knowing nothing else, knowing not time nor good nor bad, knowing nothing but the light of itself, knowing nothing but expanding eternity, winding itself around and around, escalating, dancing joyful light?
Immersed in the light, how would you even know that this unbounded light was light? There would not be a name for light. There wouldn't be a name for anything. There would be nothing to name. There would be the beingness of light. There would be Being dancing in its own light. There would be this energy ready to burst into song, come into play, implode upon itself, replicating the wholeness of its being, furling and unfurling, circling itself in ever-widening circles, embracing itself as if there were no other, when all the while there is no other.
To me this Heavenletter supports the notion of training ego. Training might be a poor word choice, but there is a process of getting ourselves out of the way so that we can be a clear channel for Godde. Jochen, when you said it was like a slap on the forehead, I had to laugh. I tell people all the time that I have a "thunk" spot in my brain--you know, that finger poke on the head that's supposed to knock some sense into you. Whenever I speaking for Spirit and I, Pam, say "I think", I swear Godde "thunks" me as a reminder to not interject my ego views. There are many times in a reading where I would dearly love to interject my own views and opinions based on my own experiences. However, that is not what the client is looking for--they are wanting to hear from Spirit, usually confirmation of their own intuition while hoping for "better" news.
In trying to bring my nafs under some semblance of self-control I find it useful to shine a bright light on the particular one of the moment that is yanking on its leash in order to recognize it for what it is, then bless it.
Not as an approval of its behavior but as a means of bringing it back to its Owner better behaved if not actually purified. Seems to at least quiet things down for the now so we can get on with our walk.
Here's a technical question. Is "nafs" singular or plural in Turkish? In other words is one of those thingies a "naf" or a "nafs"? And if just one of them is a "nafs", what would you call the whole shebang of 68?
Who determined there were 68? Just a question, wondering where that particular number came from.
Charles, you've got it! It seems almost as though our "nafs" are like children, acting out for attention. Or simply needing to be acknowledged. Not for the purpose of being hard on ourselves, but perhaps just to be blessed.
I've had enuf of the nafs! : ) interesting ..what is at the root of the nafs?
peace soup!
Jahn Austin,Texas
Jahn, come back! Tell us more!