Seven Nafs/Seven Planes

(published in Vol I #2 July Newsletter....Halka al Hazrati, Qadiri Rifa'i Inayati Order of Grass Valley, Ca., talk D)

by Shaykh Ezra Ahmed Muhsin

The topic I want to discuss was touched upon by someone earlier that the movie on the life of Ghandi did not seem to dwell upon his spiritually sufficiently. That is because it was made for an audience here, and an audience here in the U.S. lives mostly on the plane of Nasut (mankind or humanity). On the plane of Nasut, the correspondence is compared to the first level of the ego center in the science of the nafs. The ego centers have to be transcended. The nafs must be transcended in their order, as part of the personal Miraj (ascent) just as in the life of the Prophet.

It is written, Mohammed saws traveled from Jerusalem to Mecca, then he made the ascension through the seven levels/planes, then he returned. We talked about how we as Sufis (each one of us), have to make that ascent. The level that corresponds to the plane of Nasut is the Nafs-i-Ammara. It is derived from the Arabic word Amir (the commander), meaning the commanding nafs. And these are the nafs of our animal nature. This is pretty much the level of existence in Nasut; the day to day, event to event, job to job experience of survival. And depending upon...how...you negotiate this, a determination is made as to.....whether you are going to make an ascension. The individual that is commanded by his lower animal ego/nafs is not consciously participating in any kind of spiritual development. "Ahhh I am hungry, I must eat, I don't have this or that, I'll get it from him or her." This is the very lowest level, cave man stuff. You just beat someone over the head and have your own way. But most people in our society say, "We are going to earn our way honestly." What if people don't want to give you what you desire, are you going to beat them over the head, or cheat them.....or earn what you need? Civilization has given us a method of acquiring things by earning our way and paying for them honestly, but in the inner cities you can still see people taking what they want by various means. When a person is on the spiritual path, the first thing they have to defeat is everything on the level of the Nafs-i-Ammara, like these desires to profit unfairly. The Buddhists call it the Desire Realm or the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts.

Whenever a person starts seeing things this way, they will say, "I cannot behave like this anymore, it is not right, it is not good, I shouldn't be doing this." They are beginning to accept blame for their behavior. This is the next level of the ego/nafs, the Nafs-i-Lawwama, the blameworthy nafs. Now, both of these levels exist on the plane of Nasut. On the second level people have started to become conscious. They say, "I really should not do that, I am sorry." Often in concert with that plane, they may say, "Oh that person should not have done that, they should be sorry." It can be projected, so the blaming and the blameworthy nafs is a situation where you at least see there is something higher. You blame yourself whenever you fall, and you tend to blame others too, whenever you see them falling. These two levels both exist on the plane of Nasut.

As a person progresses spiritually, they begin to develop a spiritual dimension. They can experience what is called...the psychic planes. This is the level that is called the Alam al Mithal, or the world of archetypes. For all intents and purposes it is the world of intellectual genius, art, music, literature, and psychic inspiration. It corresponds to the Nafs-i-Mulhama the third level of the nafs. The next level are the Nafs-i-Mutmaina and they are called the peaceful or serene. As you travel spiritually you rise through the planes of existence, and the level of the Nafs-i-Mutmaina would correspond to the Angelic plane or the plane of Malakut.

I think I missed one point. These nafs overlap or co-exist, one might say that they all exist simultaneously although each one is a bridge to the next level. So the Nafs-i-Mutmaina is the bridge between the plane of Malakut and Jabarut. Jabarut is the plane of splendor. The word Jabarut comes from Jabbar, one of the Beautiful Names of Allah, which means, the compelling. That level of the nafs are serene and tranquil. However even these exalted levels must be purified and transcended. You may think that you have arrived! An example of this level would be; someone who goes to the Himalayas and finds himself a cave and sits there, people come to him and look up to him, and he is content whth that. He has mastered the lower levels, and he just goes on sabbatical. You think that you have no further to go, that is O.K. There is nothing wrong with that. When Pir initiates people he says, "May you reach your highest illumination in this lifetime." A person's highest illumination might be if they can reach the fourth level, that is great, it is perfectly fine. It is actually the function of the Sufi shaykh to bring you to the fifth level, the level of the Nafs-i-Radiyya, called the satisfied nafs. That is where Allah is happy with you! It corresponds to the plane of Lahut, the plane of the masters, saints and prophets.

You are satisfied with Allah on the next plane of Nafs-i-Mardiyya, the plane of Hahut. That is the level of your meeting with Allah the attainment of Miraj. The next level you experience Allah as the Unmanifest and the Manifest. It is the level of the Nafs-i-Safiyya, and the absolute purity of your nafs.

These higher levels must be dealt with before the "Face to Face" meeting with Him. The levels that are experienced by the average person on a daily basis are the lower ones. When the nafs come up they are like the Borg on Star Trek, "You will be assimilated, resistance is futile!" The nafs come and they whisper to you. And once you are assimilated, then you think that everything is all right. It is interesting, because the different levels of the nafs have levels within levels, it can be a complex experience. I think I know what my faults are, and people close to me know them better than I do. This is what you should rely on, and it is hard to face, because you cannot always see it. You kick and you scream, and you say, "NO! I am not like that at all."

They say, the Sufi path is like walking on a razors edge. But "This is not a caravan of despair, O' traveler, no matter how many times you have broken your vow, come, come again." These levels we must deal with in our spiritual work, and believe me it is hard. The nafs come up in such a way, that they tell you everything is all right. But you must not believe it. When you look around the world and see what is happening, you see that most people are not interested in personal growth. They are interested in making that wheel in their squirrel cage go as fast as they can. They want to get the carrot....that is all they see. They are nailed on this earth...and they don't have a clue. And that is the really toughest thing. Once a person stops and they can say to themselves..."There must be more than this." Then they are ready to wake up.

So shouldn't we give our gratitude to those who have taken their time to teach us? We were discussing earlier the concept of skillful means, i.e. using techniques to elicit situations to help people. When a teacher does this, the teacher knows it is.....SKILLFUL, but the student thinks it is.....MEAN. I want to dedicate our Zikr to those Lights who helped us, whether we knew it at the time or could appreciate them at that time or not. Let us give thanks to them. That is just it. Sometimes you never knew who your teachers were. The lower teachers are the ones who get the grand hats, and the robes, they get to sit in front of the people and talk. The others are not publically recognized, often they are capable of doing much higher spiritual work.

Heaven is perfect, nothing that is not perfect can get into heaven. And the levels that we must travel through are the Nasut, Alam al Mithal, Malakut, Jabarut, Lahut, and Hahut. Every plane has its aspects. The Alam al Mithal remember is where you move into an area where you can see more, but as Shaykh Taner would say, there are lots of Jinn there waiting to trip you up. We could have a weekend retreat on each of these planes. The highest plane in the words of Rumi: "I reached the gates of Paradise, and then left myself outside." You have to leave yourself outside. You have to become nothing, annihilated. Because entering Paradise, as I said is entering into a state of perfection. Inshallah! Let that be our dua (prayer) for today. That we should all reach our highest illumination.

Try to visualize this: a person is moving towards this spiritual goal. Someone comes and knocks them around. Then maybe they get knocked down again! If you are knocked backwards, then two steps backwards could take you closer to your goal. Be grateful that you have good friends who will be there to catch you when you get drifty.