Reaching the Top Monday, December 3, 2007
Posted by Administrator 2 in Nafs.trackback
by Hafeed Abdul Kader
Once Shaykh gave an analogy which simply and beautifully captures why controlling the nafs is an essential factor in a person’s climb to perfection :
“Imagine there is a person who is climbing a mountain. Due to having walked a very long distance he is very tired. Just prior to reaching the summit he notices that the last part of the climb is very strenous.
Despite this portion of the climb being very difficult, he finds that there is something pushing him on. And it is through this extra support that he continues his climb and slowly but surely reaches the peak.
On the other hand there is another climber in exactly the same situation. He is also tired but despite exerting all his efforts he finds that there something constantly holding him back.
Thus this climber fails to achieve his objective of reaching the mountain’s summit.
The first climber is like that person who has control over his desires. Because he has nutured his nafs the nafs helps him in his deeds. The second climber is like that person whose nafs is out of control.
The nafs constantly overpowers him to such an extent that even if he wants to carry out good deeds, his nafs won’t let him.”
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