Nafs-kushi...

We should be careful to take away from ourselves any thorns that prick us in the
personality of others.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:


We frequently say, 'I dislike him,' 'I wish to avoid her,' but if we examine
this carefully, we find it is the same element in all that we dislike, the ego.

And when we turn to ourselves to see if we have it in us, we find it is there
too. We should forget it, therefore, in other people, and first turn our
attention to crushing it within ourselves. We should determine to have our house
clean even if other people neglect theirs. We should be careful to take away
from ourselves any thorns that prick us in the personality of others.

There is a
verse in the Quran, which says, 'Arise in the midst of the night, and commune
with thy Lord... Bear patiently what others say.' This is not only a command to
rise in the night and pray, but it also means that by rising in the night we
crush the ego, for the ego demands its rest and comfort, and when denied, is
crushed. The mystics fast for the same reason. The Sufi's base the whole of
their teaching on the crushing of the ego which they term Nafs-kushi, for
therein lies all magnetism and power.

For every soul there are four stages to pass through in order to come to the
culmination of the ego, which means to reach the stage of the rose.

The first
stage is that a person is rough, thoughtless and inconsiderate. He is interested
in what he wants and in what he likes; as such he is naturally blind to the
needs and wants of others.

In the second stage a man is decent and good as long
as his interests are concerned. As long as he can get his wish fulfilled he is
pleasant and kind and good and harmonious; but if he cannot get his wish and
cannot have his way, then he becomes rough and crude and changes completely.

And
there is a third stage, when someone is more concerned with another person's
wish and desire, and less with himself; when his whole heart is seeking for what
he can do for another. In his thought the other person comes first and he comes
afterwards. That is the beginning of turning into the rose.

It is only a
rosebud, but then in the fourth stage this rosebud blooms in the person who
entirely forgets himself in doing kind deeds for others. In Sufi terms the
crushing of the ego is called Nafs Kushi.