My name is Steve, and I don’t actually exist in the way that the English language would lead me to believe. I will try to explain:
I’m made up of numerous little Steves who take turns in the driver’s seat. There’s the Steve who wants to drink vast quantities of wine and beer. He's been confined to the backseat for the last couple of years, but I know he’s still looking for opportunities to take over the wheel. There’s also the Steve who likes to smoke cigars. These first two are pretty close to one and the same guy. They are the soothers.
There’s also the Steve who loves art and has actually swooned in the presence of a painting, the one who wants to make art just as good, the one who thinks that would be an awful lot of work so it would be best to start it later, the one who finds physics and philosophy very interesting, the one who loves his family and friends, the one who resents obligations and responsibilities, the one who thinks his taste in clothes is indisputably the best, and for all the right reasons, although this one is fading as I age, and there’s the one who thinks he's very intelligent, the one who worries about the natural and social environments, and also the one who convinces all the other drivers that they are the one and only Steve. That last one rides shotgun and functions as the navigator. The Sufis would say these are some of my nafs.
Carl Jung would equate a naf with a complex, that being a cluster of related ideas and emotions that influence behaviour. The theory of complexes is common to both Jung and Freud. Jung stressed that complexes are merely heuristics that point us towards understanding. An unconditional belief in the independent existence of complexes and the nafs won’t be helpful, but a working hypothesis about the existence of them is a useful inaccuracy. This heuristic belief forms the basis of our ability to observe ourselves impartially.
The problems arise when we further suppose that we ourselves are those complexes. The liberating realization would be to understand that we are not those things, but rather, are the thing that notices these complexes, that we are the thing that impartially observes all the comings and going's of our mind without identifying with them. We are simply pure awareness.
As far as I know, the Sufis see the nafs mostly as unworthy, carnal aspects of the ego, but there’s probably a lot more to it than that. Nonetheless, the unworthy ones are certainly the most obvious. The nafs I disapprove of in myself are by far the easiest ones to see as not actually being me. That's the best place to start the process of self observation, and that’s why the Sufis would put the stress on the negative ones. The moral teachings of religions perform the same function.
Who doesn’t want to think of themselves as a curious, creative, responsible, loving person? That’s a lot better than being a vain, resentful, procrastinating substance abuser. And that’s why it’s best to begin the process of self observation with our negative aspects, those things we don't approve of. With true impartiality, in the absence of judgement, self observation is the first stirrings of compassion. Awareness doesn't judge, it simply sees, and all things are forgiven for their ignorance. They do not know what they do.
Hamlet’s tragedy of revenge hinges on his hesitation to kill his uncle while he prayed in the chapel. Hamlet thought he could condemn both body and soul, and beat God to the punch. Like many stories, dreams included, you could think of this play as a model of your own mind. The characters are your nafs, and you, the audience or dreamer, know full well that they are not real.
But there is a problem: If I were to see all my proclivities as not me, I would find that there is nothing left. This is alarming. There’s a threatened little Steve who thinks that’s frightening. This Steve is actually the one who rides shotgun, and thinks he is the one and only Steve. His fear of dissolution is standing in the way of progress. If unacknowledged, this final, ultimate naf will leave me alone and isolated from the real world, surrounded by all my other nafs as they insinuate themselves into my identity.
The nafs swirl around us like dust devils, they pull up thoughts that give themselves the illusion of importance and truth. And we have plenty of emotional back burners to keep all of those nafs and complexes swirling and energized, ready at any time to take over the driver’s seat. My ambitions and accomplishments are mostly their doing, it is the work of a termite colony as opposed to a single self.
We are guided by the stories we tell ourselves: Our addictions lie to us, and our motivations sooth, flatter, and beguile us. This putative world of separate things blocks our view of the real world of pure awareness. As my grandmother used to say, “Fancy that.”
Love this. I like ALL the Steves. Who/what/where is the witness? Please write about LOVE.