Tazkiyah: Metaphysics

To preface, I would like to say that none of this is my knowledge, I am but a student pursuing and attempting to connect.

Tazkiyah

the purification of the soul from inclination towards evils and sins, and the development of its innate disposition towards goodness, which leads to its uprightness and its reaching faith.

Obstacles

In the way of Tazkiyah

• Shirk (association to God)

• Obeying the Carnal Soul (nafs)

• Doubt

• Negligence

Maintaining Tazkiyah: 

• Loving God

• Abundant Supplication

• Seeking forgiveness and mercy

• Seek guidance and purification 

• Remember death and finiteness of life

• Company of the good and pious

Stages of the Carnal soul:

Nafs-al-ammarah - Unruly animal self, lead by beastly evil actions

Nafs-al-lawwamah - Struggling moral self, a self reproaching soul

Nafs-al-mutma’inna - Satisfied soul or the composed God realized self

The beast: 

The journey begins with the challenge of freeing oneself from the influence of the Devil and the unruly animal self. The commanding soul is that which leans towards the bodily nature. Commanding oneself to sensual pleasures and lusts, pulling the heart down. The Hindu chakra believes in the lower thirds being your beastly nature that keep you grounded. 

The Reproaching:

The conscience is awakened and the self begins to accuse one for listening to the selfish mind. Here the realization that there are two minds, the carnal soul within you begins to visibly form and the separation of the two becomes easier to realize. The resistance of wrongdoing, and the conscious effort to seek forgiveness when wrongdoing is made. At this stage, one begins to understand the negative effects of a habitual self-centered approach to the world, even though they do not yet have the ability to change. One's misdeeds now begin to become repellent to them, and one enters a cycle of erring, regretting mistakes, and then erring again.

At peace: 

"Those who believe, and whose hearts find their rest in the remembrance of God – for, verily, in the remembrance of God do hearts find satisfaction”.

The soul becomes tranquil, at peace and content with solely the presence of God. Once a person becomes completely in control of their innate desires, is able to maintain the prophetic manners. Only then can he reach the final point of complete satisfaction with everything, a nirvana of a kind. The erasure of everything that stands in the way of Gods love.

ISLAMIC TREE OF VIRTUE

Similar to Nicomachean Ethics/Platonic Virtue

Tree of good manners

1. good character

2. truthfulness

The traveler must purify himself from these bad traits and rid his heart of the underlying ailments that are at their source. He must be perfect in behavior.

Sufis believed that the level of human perfection was dependent on the the discipline of that human. In that belief, the Sufis practiced fasting, roaming in poverty, and lengthy meditations.

Maqamat: is referring to the stages that a sufi must go through to attain the highest level of contentment and peace.

         Seven Maqamat:

• Repentance (tawbah): Begins with the light of Divine Recognition in the heart that realizes sin is spiritual poison. This induces regret and a yearning to compensate for past shortcomings and determination to avoid them in the future. Tawbah means regaining one's essential purity after every spiritual defilement. Maintaining this psychological state requires certain essential elements. The first is self-examination and the other is introversion or meditation.

• Abstention (wara): Pious self-restraint: the highest level of wara' is to eschew anything that might distract one, even briefly, from the consciousness of God. Some Sufis define wara as conviction of the truth of Islamic tenets, being straightforward in belief and acts, steadfast in observing Islamic commandments, and careful in one's relations with God.

• Asceticism (zuhd): Doing without what you do not need and making do with little. It is the emptiness of the heart that doesn't know any other commitment than what is in relation to God, or coldness of the heart and dislike of the soul in relation to the world.

• Poverty (faqr): Poverty, both material and spiritual. This means denial of the nafs demands for pleasure and power, and dedication to the service of others instead of self-promotion. Poverty means lack of attachment to possessions and a heart that is empty of all except the desire for God.

• Patience (ṣabr): Essential characteristic for the mystic, literally means enduring, bearing, and resisting pain and difficulty.

• Confidence (tawakkul): At this stage we realize everything we have comes from Allah. We rely on Allah instead of this world. The condition for achieving tawakkul is sincere acknowledgement of God's oneness.

  
  

• Contentment (riḍā’): Submission to fate, showing no rancor or rebellion against misfortune, and accepting all manifestations of Destiny without complaint. rida means preferring God's wishes over one's own in advance, accepting his Decree without complaint, based on the realization that whatever God wills and does is good.

Tame the 'Beast', Embrace the 'Angel', Lock up the Devil.

At the end of the day we must pursue in a continued effort of refining ourselves, and our characters; whichever dimension your carnal soul resides within, it will control you.

Mankind's potential is to be better than Angels, but worse than Devils.