Nafs Quotes

a real teacher never wishes to make another individual dependent on him or her -- rather, the intention is always to help an individual develop the person's own spiritual sense of taste or dhawk concerning interior events so that one can learn to distinguish truth from falsehood and so that one can learn how to trust one's essential Self (as opposed to one's surface self which is rooted in an unredeemed nafs). ~ Bill Whitehouse

You cannot have two foundations. Either you stand and act from your heart and soul, or your life will flow from the animal soul, the nafs, your lust and greed and forgetfulness, which are characteristics of what dies and does not surrender to receive the compassion of God. ~ Bahauddin

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. ~ Idries Shah

Fight against your ego with the four swords of training: eat little, sleep little, speak little, and be patient when people harm you ... Then the ego will walk the paths of obedience, like a fleeing horseman in the field of battle. ~ Yahya Ibn Mu'adh Al-Razi

His constant fight is with the Nafs (self-interest), the root of all disharmony and the only enemy of man. By crushing this enemy man gains mastery over himself; this wins for him mastery over the whole universe, because the wall standing between the self and the Almighty has been broken down. Gentleness, mildness, respect, humility, modesty, self-denial, conscientiousness, tolerance and forgiveness are considered by the Sufi as the attributes which produce harmony within one's own soul as well as within that of another. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

The authentic mystic wisdom ( mafrifa) is that of the soul which
knows itself as a theophany, an individual form in which are
epiphanized the divine Attributes which it would be unable to
know if it did not discover and apprehend them in itself. 'When
you have entered into my Paradise, you have entered into your-
self ( into your "soul," nafs), and you know yourself with an-
other knowledge, different from that which you had when you
knew your Lord by the knowledge you had of yourself," for
now you know Him, and it is through Him that you know
yourself. ~ Henry Corbin

That Islam you see on TV does not represent me,
I'm too busy waging jihad against myself,
My own nafs are my enemy.
I'm sorry that Muslim and Muslim lands do not represent Islam,
Our religion is perfect, but we on the other hand ... ~ Boonaa Mohammed

Your nafs (soul/desires) is your first battlefield. If you are victorious over it, then you will find the other battlefields easier. ~ Hassan Al-Banna

Mujāhada, a collateral form of jihād (the so-called "holy war"), taken [by Sufis] to mean "earnest striving after the mystical life." The term is based on the Koranic text, "And they that strive earnestly in Our cause, them We surely guide upon Our paths." A Tradition makes the Prophet rank the "greater warfare" (al jihad al-akbar) above the "lesser warfare" (al jihad al-asghar, i.e., the war against infidelity), and explain the "greater warfare" as meaning "earnest striving with the carnal soul" (mujāhadat al-nafs). ~ A.J. Arberry

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress. ~ Idries Shah

If you want an enemy, the soul (nafs) is sufficient. If you want advice, death is sufficient. ~ Said Nursi

You must know everything that God has forbidden you so as to be able to avoid it, for the one who does not recognize evil falls into it. ~ ʻAbd Allāh Ibn ʻAlawī Al-Ḥaddād

There are four types of oceans. Passions are the ocean of sins, the self (nafs) is the ocean of lust, death is the ocean of life, and the grave is the ocean of distress ~ Umar

Nothing kills the soul that commands to evil (Nafs al Ammarra) like seeing the beauty of the heart. ~ Shams Tabrizi

To blame others for our misfortunes is always a victory for the nafs. ~ Timothy Winter

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one. ~ Idries Shah

For every Pharoah there is a Moses. ~ Idries Shah

In Sufi terms the crushing of the ego is called Nafs Kushi. 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, 'He ought to have done this, she ought to have said that,' we say, 'What does it matter, either this way or that way? Every person is what he is; you cannot change him, but you can change yourself.' That is the crushing ... It is only in this way that we can crush our ego. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Your Nafs is just like a suckling child. If you do not take the pains to wean him, he will yearn for his mother's breast even when he's grown up. Therefore you should not try to satisfy your lust by indulging in sins. This will only increase the desire for more sins. The same is the case with the disease of gluttony. The more a person eats, the more his hunger increases. ~ Busiri

Instead of an outer-oriented jihad - defined as "the war against infidels" and carried out by many in those days just as in the present - Rumi stood up for an inner-oriented jihad where the aim was to struggle against and ultimately prevail over one's ego, nafs. ~ Elif Shafak

The Path to the Truth is a labour of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide. Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs (false ego) with your heart. Knowing your ego (higher self/soul) will lead you to the knowledge of God. (2) ~ Various

Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me. ~ Al-Ghazali