A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36: 26
The Soul or Anima its seen on different light by different Cultures, and Religions, like the Buddhists consider it like an aggregated.
SamâIn Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of “non-self”, that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings.It is one of the seven beneficial perceptions in Buddhism,and along with dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanence), it is one of three Right Understandings about the three marks of existence.
The Buddhist concept of anatta or anatman is one of the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Hinduism, with the latter asserting that atman (self, soul) exists
In Buddhism-related English literature, Anattā is rendered as “not-Self”, but this translation expresses an incomplete meaning, states Peter Harvey; a more complete rendering is “non-Self” because from its earliest days, Anattā doctrine denies that there is anything called a ‘Self’ in any person or anything else, and that a belief in ‘Self’ is a source of Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness) It is also incorrect to translate Anattā simply as “ego-less”, according to Peter Harvey, because the Indian concept of ātman and attā is different from the Freudian concept of ego.
Anatta or Anatta-vada is also referred to as the “no-soul or no-self doctrine” of Buddhism.
Meanwhile in Islam the Sufis.
The Quran affords much importance to the nafs of an individual, highlighting the agency of free will and intelligence, without which neither responsibility nor accountability can exist. The Quran does not attribute to the nafs any inherent properties of good or evil, but instead conveys the idea that it is something which has to be nurtured and self-regulated, so that it can progress into becoming ‘good’ through its thoughts and actions. The Quranic conception of the nafs therefore has an extremely modernistic undertone.
There are three principal stages of nafs in Sufism Wisdom, also mentioned in different verses of the Quran. The Sufis call them “stages” in the process of development, refinement and mastery of the nafs.
The inciting nafs (an-nafs al-ʾammārah)
In its primitive stage the nafs incites us to commit evil: this is the nafs as the lower self, the base instincts. In the eponymous Sura of the Quran, Yusuf says “Yet I claim not that my nafs was innocent: Verily the nafs incites to evil.”[Quran 12:53] Islam emphasizes the importance of fighting the inciting nafs in Quran as well as in hadith.
The self-accusing nafs (an-nafs al-luwwāmah)
In Sura al-Qiyama the Quran mentions “the self-accusing nafs”.[Quran 75:2] This is the stage where “the conscience is awakened and the self accuses one for listening to one’s ego. One repents and asks for forgiveness.”Here the nafs is inspired by your heart, sees the results of your actions, agrees with your brain, sees your weaknesses, and aspires to perfection.
The nafs at peace (an-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah)
In Sura al-Fajr the Quran mentions “the nafs at peace”.[Quran 89:27] This is the ideal stage of ego for Muslims. On this level one is firm in one’s faith and leaves bad manners behind. The soul becomes tranquil, at peace.At this stage, followers of Sufism have relieved themselves of all materialism and worldly problems and are satisfied with the will of God.
However they add four additional stages.
The inciting nafs (an-nafs al-ʾammārah)
The self-accusing nafs (an-nafs al-luwwāmah)
The inspired nafs (an-nafs al-mulhamah)
The nafs at peace (an-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah)
The pleased nafs (an-nafs ar-raḍīyyah)
The pleasing nafs (an-nafs al-marḍīyyah)
The pure nafs (an-nafs aṣ-ṣāfīyyah)
Dervishes from the Jerrahi school of Sufism are encouraged to study a text describing these stages of nafs as a nested series of cities.
Characteristics of nafs
In its primitive state the nafs has seven characteristics that must be overcome:
Pride (Takabbur)
Greed (Hirs)
Jealousy (Hasad)
Lust (Shahwah)
Backbiting (Gheebah)
Stinginess (Bokhl)
Malice (Keena)
In Hinduism specifically in Yoga
Shakti (Devanagari: Śakti; lit. “power, ability, strength, effort, energy, capability is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism, and especially the major tradition of Hinduism, Shaktism.
Shakti is the concept or personification of divine feminine creative power, sometimes referred to as “The Great Divine Mother” in Hinduism. As a mother, she is known as “Adi Shakti” or “Adi Parashakti”. On the earthly plane, Shakti most actively manifests herself through female embodiment and creativity/fertility, though it is also present in males in its potential, unmanifest form. Hindus believe that Shakti is both responsible for creation and the agent of all change. Shakti is cosmic existence as well as liberation, its most significant form being the Kundalini Shakti, a mysterious psychospiritual force.
When you surrender to Shakti, its energy will guide you upwards waking up all the chakras, specially the heart chakra, and it will join on the top of the head Shahasrara Padma, with his counterpart the masculine Shiva.To become one. Represented on Hindu Iconography as the sexual Union between Shiva and Shakti.Its said that Shiva its Shakti in her Feminine form on the manifested or Earthly Realm.
Some may say each its different, my personal opinion, its just different ways to reach the same goal.
TAWBA The Turning Of The Heart
We all have a story, and individual situations, that belong only to us, designed for us personally to discover Heart, by the power of Spirit.
The only way we can reach a truly Human condition, its through of what the Sufis name “Tawba” translated as repentance, and the Hadith on the Hearts, that says:
“Verily, the hearts of the children of Adam, all of them, are between the two fingers of the Merciful as one heart. He directs them wherever he wills.” Then, the Prophet said, “O Allah, the director of the hearts, direct our hearts to your obedience.”
It’s said than when Allah decides to gift you with such a experience he turns your heart with his two fingers.
And that turns your attitude from heedlessness, to remembrance, and put you in the way to return to God obedience, and favors.
Kone, Krusos, Kronos 
I wave and smile in grateful acknowledgement. ♥
Thank you Ben. 🙂
You are welcome. ❤ 🙂
Well, you only speak of religion, but as a secular person I find this a little bit ignorant, and in my town the biggest group is secular and no member of any church. We all look for some kind of enlightenment, and besides there are common values irrespective of belief. Cheers.
We all live different lives, and we perceive the World accordingly, and our views about others are always subjective to us.
To each, his own.
Thank you for your comment. 🙂
I love the pure concept of self and the idea that we can possibly find true Nirvana by not wanting or desiring anything. I also don’t think we as human beings are designed to ever get to that point. Our brains evolve and the more we think and the more we conceptualize, the more we look around us and internalize everything that is there. It’s nearly impossible to not want or need the things that we see around us. I do think it’s admirable to try but I don’t think we were put on this Earth to ever be perfect human beings who reached Nirvana. I think we are designed to continue to try and fail but try and try again.
Well dear, as in the parable of the Talents: Matthew 25:14–30
We all get, only what we put into it.
Not a matter if we can, or not.
Are we willing to do, or not, that’s the issue.
Of course by the example of those few who do the upmost, you will consider, as most people does, this task, to be impossible.
In reality Self is within us, all we need to do its to realize this its so.
Of course because we live in a World where the Zeitgeist of the time, its for looking at reality outside of us, to look inward its the last of the places we expect to find Truth.
Here read someone else opinion, its in French but you can translate it.
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it. 🙂
The ways are many, but the heart is one. James Hillman was fond of reminding us that soul is not something in us, but that we are in soul. His idea reminds me that how we identify with the ideas and concepts that make their way into our hearts, can shape us inside and out. We respond to the world through the accumulation of an enclosure formed through the day to day.
It can’t be helped, and as you say, everyone has their story, their particular circumstance and perspective. And yet, hidden from our sight, we are in a sense, all sharing the same ground of being. If, when, we see through the facades, and undo the identity that our individual circumstances create, we’d see each other as one, or parts of the One.
At root though, suffering finds all of us; something will eventually break our heart, which is perhaps the only way to remove the barriers between us and the divine will, the ultimate Other that must remain ungraspable and yet is always all there is.
Tonight, I remembered something that happened to me a long time ago when I was in junior high school. It was a painful incident of shaming and bullying that not only scared me, but shaped much of my subsequent experience, and in some ways, still does. I realize now that during this moment, a wall was being built; a wall that divides self from other and convincingly so. The lesson being that we live in a world where many walls are built, both inside and out, and we cease to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and to simply be One. Not only do we harm ourselves with these walls, but we harm others, or, all of us, and the One.
I don’t know what a world without walls looks like. Even if many individuals reach states where the walls begin to tumble down, melt away, dissolve and are seen through for their utter lack of substance, as Mother Theresa among others may have done, our culture(s), our way of being, all of this is predicated on an agreement that the walls are real! That is why we are forever instituting boundaries, property, laws, slicing and dicing the One into the many, yes?
Even if I claim that the walls between myself and others seem very thin lately, and continue to burn away revealing naked sameness between “myself and others,” doesn’t life as we know it require that we play the game of walls to get along? How does one keep a foot in both worlds without being torn to pieces? The thinner the walls, is it not also true that the more one’s sensitivity increases? Perhaps one gets used to the sensitivity increasing, and lets it flow through our being, neither denying it, nor identifying with it?
Blessings to you, Brigido, for inspiring these thoughts. I know and trust that with time and attention to the questions that call to us, more is continually revealed.
Walls, belong to our limited mental frames, and become attitudes, that shape our behavior, we build them materially to protect self, and property, and subjectively to protect ego.
To step out of those walls, we may see it as risky, rather than Liberating.
Its all a matter of attitude.
Thank you Debra, for your valuable insight. 🙂
🙂 That piece of writing was definitely inspired by your thoughts and a bit of eclipse fever!
Frankly speaking, this post is difficult for me to understand completely, because I do non know much about the mentioned religions. I personally think that we perceive certain things and the brain turns this awareness into emotions, which may be positive or negative according to how we see a situation.
I , therefore, very much like your following sentence: “Well, now you are in a great position, you have being offered a great gift, most of the time our heart needs to be broken, to discover we have a Heart”
Thank you very much Mr. Brigido, for your insightful post. Best regards Martina
Thank you Martina, yes it can be difficult when we do not know the terminology of specific methodologies on Mystical, and Religious issues.
However you captured very well the importance of suffering, in order to share our empathy to those who suffer.
Thank you Martina for your comment, we always appreciate it. 🙂
Thank you for this very timely and heart-inspring article, Mr Anaya. May we all be given hearts of flesh and may we be forgiven for our hearts of stone. I learned a lot from this article as I did not know some of the details of how some of the religions perceive the soul or the self. Since my approach is from a depth-psychology perspective I’m inclined to strongly lean towards the concept of the self (those thought systems that support this concept) -and the developing of the higher aspect/s of the self – the Self (with a capital). All the components, I believe should be there: the heart, spirit, mind and soul – to form the whole Self, the integral Self and the indivisible Self, once all the components become integrated.
However, as you mentioned, perhaps more than anything it is the heart that needs to be activated – that needs to turn, or be turned – we all have the capacity for this heart-turning, but as you also rightly point out, a personal tragedy or shock sometimes is needed for a heart to turn, and life inevitably brings such circumstances our way in our lifetimes.
I’m currently writing a series of articles on these themes too and it seems that there’s a real need for the development of compassion in the world (right now) the reason being that globally emotional intelligence and empathy levels are dropping – in my research came across this table for example – this organisation releases ‘State of the Heart’ reports – and the situation seems to be critical:
https://www.6seconds.org/2016/04/06/state-heart-2016-implications-business-beyond/
This is quite worrisome, because the question would be – how low will our empathy go? I will attempt to address this question in one of my chapters in the coming weeks.
Thank you again Mr Anaya for sharing your knowledge and insights with us.
Best wishes,
J.J.
I am glad you find of interest what I wrote, Jean-Jacques.
Well, to be really Human we need a Heart of flesh, not of stone.
And therefore, the task at hand, to seek a Heart, so Love, an Compassion can flow to have a World In Harmony, and at Peace.
Remembering above that Peace its not the end of wars, but as Philippians 4:7:
“The Peace Of God, Which Surpasses All Understanding, Will Guard Your Hearts And Minds.”
Its, the resolution of conflict in the Human Heart.
Thank you for your comment Jean-Jacques. 🙂
Very interesting! Thank you for this, Mr Anaya – I certainly have some exploring to do into this area – thank you for making me aware.
All the best to you!
smiling to the insight
this lesson offers me 🙂
Thank you, nothing like smiling to keep happiness flowing. 🙂
Thank you Brigido
Thanks to you dear. 🙂
A reminder, as always, of basically what I keep forgetting to do almost every day.
I’ve been trying to catch myself as I drive to work. When someone does something ridiculous and dangerous in traffic, instead of getting mad and letting loose with the expletives, I’ve been replacing all that with some benign, calming statement. I’m hoping this tiny activity will begin to expand compassion into a wider and wider scope…..not just on my drive to work. 🙂
Its great that you are doing that rather than give to road rage, like most people do.
I will tell you a personal experience, it happened on my youth, a nephew of mine, but of my same age, we drove for some hours to the city he was studying at, he was driving quite fast and a little carelessly, since he did it quite often, there was this mountain pass, on those days it was very dangerous, , you will end behind a heavy truck, and it will be very difficult to get ahead of him, to pass over the left lane, so you could be stuck there for quite a long time, my nephew not even twenty years of age, at the time lost patience at certain moment, and went ahead passing the heavy truck, we just miss another trucker coming the opposite direction, the driver was very cool, and didn’t blast his horn at us or show us his finger, he just blessed us with the sign of the cross, I could see him that clearly.
Well, to be honest, if he had being mad and yelled an obscenity, or what most drivers do to show their contempt at you, I would not even remember it, but after more than forty-five years I do, and also my nephew.
So keep the good work, show your good nature, it works 🙂
Thank you, Burning Heart. I love that story. That is actually really amazing. I haven’t even gotten that far yet to bless people. I will be a saint at that point, maybe, lol !! But that’s a great story. Thanks for sharing. 🙂 🙂 🙂
It’s what we do in kindness that will change the World, and make it better, not what we do in anger.
Thank you kindly. 🙂
Interesting! I notice you skip Christianity, and in particular the teachings of Jesus regarding the soul, which are quite different from the above ideas.
I did it for several reasons, like for Christian people to be aware of similarities rather, differences, mostly we live in a Christian World context, as an example in the town I live, I hardly know anybody who belongs to a different faith, and we are familiar with Mark 7:21-23, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within (out of the soul), and defile the man.”
And Reading in Romans 3:10, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:” (No, not one soul is righteous.) Reading Luke 16:15, “God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart (soul) of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
And secondly I wanted some alert persons to bring this to the fore, like you are doing, and for people to realize that its not as different to other religions, specially in the Abrahamic traditions, where the soul has to suffer a transformation like from the inciting Soul, to the Pure Soul, or the Soul at peace.
And of course I quotes Ezekiel 36:26
To transform the heart of stone, into a heart of flesh.
Thank you for your comment, and for being alert, to it. 🙂
Well said. Although at it’s heart Christianity is about entering a love-based relationship with our Creator (John 17:3). Blessings, my friend.