To: briskit who wrote (11880 ) 3/24/2002 4:02:23 PM From: 2MAR$ Read Replies (1) | Respond to Here's a good link to mystic side of Islam , Sufism arches.uga.edu nafs ) , & ego's "attachments".Some of the gross effects of the dominance of the nafs are that one may become overwhelmed by the need to gratify desires such as anger, lust, and the many addictions that afflict us. Other gross effects are that one may become dominated by states of consciousness such as anxiety, boredom, regret, depression, and self-pity-- so that one feels like a powerless victim or prisoner tortured within one's own mind. Hence, one of the emphases of Sufism is upon the struggle to overcome the dominance that one's "Ego" or nafs has over one, a struggle that first and foremost involves choosing at each moment to remember and surrender actively to God--irrespective of whether the form in which God becomes manifest is absence Holy Wrath and fell back on the old time-honored tradition of the threat of hell and torture and promise of"personal messianic visions" at times is an understatement , but they were playing to an audience of their day and age , in a world within a greater world at large , of which they knew so very little , but were destined to comletely shake the foundations of , and the unavoidable clashes of forces that inevitably followed " Them " , who are the unbelievers and oppressors In this regard, the struggle with one's own nafs has been called the greater struggle or greater "holy war" (al-jihad al-akbar) in contrast to the lesser struggle (al-jihad al-asghar), which is against injustice and oppressors in this world. The concept derives from the popular hadith of the Prophet, in which he said to Muslims returning from a battle, "You have returned from the lesser struggle to the greater struggle." And he was asked, "What is the greater struggle?" He answered, "The struggle against one's self (nafs), which is between the two sides of your body." Needless to say, in Sufism these two struggles are mutually reinforcing and occur simultaneously. In particular, the practice of "engaged surrender" in the "greater" struggle with one's own nafs diminishes certain obstacles in the consciousness of the Sufi, obstacles that--if not stuggled against--will hinder the Sufi's capacity to engage in the "lesser" struggle in their life in the world.
