Word 46: The one who contemplates the proofs of the immateriality of Nafs in the Barzakh (intermediary) world, intellectual world, and the super intellectual world will conclude that the Nafs is an extensive eternal essence.
Word 46: The one who contemplates the proofs of the immateriality of Nafs in the Barzakh (intermediary) world, intellectual world, and the super intellectual world will conclude that the Nafs is an extensive eternal essence.
The one who contemplates the proofs of the immateriality of Nafs in the Barzakh (intermediary) world, intellectual world, and the super intellectual world will conclude that the Nafs is an extensive eternal essence.
As we delve deeper into our discussion, we come to understand that Nafs is not the physical body but a distinct reality. It does not follow the laws of matter. The Nafs has an immaterial level in the Barzakh (intermediary) or Methal (likeness) world. The word “Barzakh” literally means mediator. A thing that is intermediate between two things becomes Barzakh. Since it is an immaterial world between the intellectual world and the material world, it is called “Barzakh”.
We have demonstrated that the Nafs possess immaterial qualities in the Barzakh realm. For example, in a dream, we see and hear nonmaterial faces and voices.
Close your eyes and imagine a 1000-meter mountain in your mind. You have created and built it in your mind, and this mountain is there as long as you pay attention to it. As soon as you take your attention away, it will not exist anymore. You also know that the mountain is 1000 meters tall. Where is the 1,000-meter mountain? Is it inside you? It doesn’t fit inside you. How does a 1000-meter mountain can be fitted inside your brain? It should be either inside or outside of you. How do you perceive something that exists outside of you? This is also not available in the material world because if it were, others would have seen it. So where is the location of the 1000-meter mountain? And how does the Nafs know about it? How do you perceive it?
We realize that our Nafs is a reality separate from matter, which is not limited to material properties. Therefore, everything can fit in it, even if it is as huge as the universe because it does not have a definite limit; it is immaterial and extensive. It has no place, size, or dimension. These are proofs of the immateriality of Nafs in the Barzakh world.
Allameh Hassanzadeh has a book called “Ganjineh Gohar Rawan” (Jewel’s Treasure of the Soul), which is in Farsi. He has collected almost a hundred reasons that prove our Nafs is free from matter and categorized these reasons based on different subjects. One of the categories is the evidence that proves the immateriality of Nafs through the power of imagination or the Barzakh world.
Another category is to prove the immateriality of the Nafs is through the intellect or the power of reason, which perceives meanings. In the example of the mountain, there was form or shape, but in order to understand meanings such as power and love, which have neither matter nor form, perception is done by the power of intellect.
We ask those who deny the Nafs, how they understand the meaning of love. Love has no shape or size to go into your brain. If love is located in your brain, it can be divided. We would be able to cut it into different pieces. Love is a concept or meaning and can not be divided, but the brain can be divided. So, the brain is not the thing that perceives the meanings and concepts of love, power, poverty, and dignity. Intellect is the one who perceives the immaterial meanings.
The third order of Nafs’s immateriality is “super-intellectual level. “Super intellectual immateriality” means that the soul does not have a limit, a ceiling, or a restriction. That is, the Nafs can’t reach a certain point and say that I can no longer become bigger than this, I can no longer gain knowledge, I am full and such words. As long as the soul acquires perfection and knowledge, it still has a place to grow. Nafs can not be full. Nafs has a hellish attribute in the sense that God says to Hell: “(Remember) the day when we will say to hell: “Are you full?” And he says: “Is there more than this?!” (Qaf:30). Whatever it takes, it will not be filled. This is the highest order of immateriality of the Nafs. The Quranic verse says: “Say, Lord, increase my knowledge” (Taha:114). Even though the seal of the prophets was the most perfect human being, the total intellect, and also the total knowledge, it means that humans are not going to stop at any level or horizon.
The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said: Two groups of people are not satisfied; one is a seeker of knowledge, and the other is a seeker of the worldly life. Some people are billionaires, but they are still greedy and want more because Nafs wants infinity. It wants to be limitless. It wants the infinite in every field.
People sometimes wander from their nature, lose sight of their aim, believe that their perfection is money, and do everything they can to become the world’s richest person, yet we can see that they are still greedy because it is not money that makes him happy, but something else. It is the same for the seeker of knowledge, even though the seeker of knowledge is undoubtedly on a higher plane than the seeker of worldly existence. Allamh Hassanzadeh said: “O My Lord, even though the official knowledge is full of talking, I am grateful that knowledge and books became my veil, not stones, mud, dirhams, and dinars” (money currency). Tradition says: There is no comfort for the believer except meeting God (Lia’ Allah) and hurrying to the homeland.
The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said: “A believer does not rest until he meets Allah”; that is, it is only the meeting of God that quenches the thirst and puts this fire to sleep.
The Angels also have intellectual immateriality, but angels have a certain position, but humans do not have this limit. As long as they go higher, there is still room to go higher. “There is not one of us (angels) but has an assigned position” (As-Saffat:164).
When a person pays attention to each of these levels of the human Nafs, i.e., Barzakh immateriality, intellectual immateriality, and total super-intellectual immateriality, he sees that all of them give the same conclusion: “The Nafs is the eternal simple essence.” The Nafs is an essence that is simple, not compound; therefore, it is eternal and not perishable. Simple is the opposite of compound. A composite is composed of different parts and components. Breath is not composed, and the Nafs is not created from different parts and organs. In composite objects, when the members and parts are separated from each other, the face of the object disintegrates, and destruction happens. For example, a flower has water, soil, and different elements in it. When the water separates, we see that it dries. It comes in the form of a dry leaf, and the dry leaf turns into soil after a while. Finally, the flower form disappears because its components are separated from each other.
The material world is the world of creation and destruction. “Whatever you have will end, but what Allah has is lasting” (An-Nahl:96). What is before you has an end; it has a certain life; it has a certain period, and it will be corrupted bit by bit until its face is destroyed. Simple entities do not have pieces that can be separated from one another. So, they will exist eternally.
Meanings are never lost. For example, two times two equals four. It is a meaning, a rule; two times two is always four. Two times of two never decay, never perish, never corrupt; it is a fixed or unchanging truth because It has no material that can be destroyed.
Recently, some people have written articles about dynamic religious law, saying that the world is constantly changing and evolving. Well, so far, this is true because the world is a world of creation and destruction. They continue to believe that humans are evolving, so religion must also progress according to humans and must be renewed. Islam belongs to 1400 years ago and must be updated.
We know that matter moves and meaning does not move. For instance, two times two equals four: one billion years before the first human and billions of years after it. Meanings and concepts are fixed, and they are not time-dependent. Logical foundations were formulated in Aristotle’s time; they existed before him, the same exist now, and they will be fixed after this because they are rational content and meaning.
Intellectual meaning and facts are neither changing nor destroyable. Unfortunately, a group of young people who have neither studied philosophy nor are familiar with the divine teachings are attracted by these people’s remarks and led astray.
Meanings are fixed even though matter is moving. We will prove later that the essence of the matter is motion. Matter is not static; matter itself is movement, and all beings are constantly moving. When there is movement, there is change; there is transformation. This is where we come to know who is the guardian of these forms. When material creatures are continuously moving and changing, someone must be present to keep their shapes.
With the above explanation, we understand the immaterial world a bit better. We understand that the immaterial world is a fixed and undestroyable degree or level. It protects the material world; it protects the forms from movements in the material world. All of these evidences lead to one conclusion: we are everlasting. One of the key subjects covered in “Self-Knowledge” is the proof of resurrection, which is a religious principle. When you realize that you are a simple essence and there is no annihilation for you, you will not be destroyed. So, you will exist forever even though your material body will be destroyed. You will have a proportional body to the immaterial life and live eternally, whether in Hell or Heaven.
Resurrection will be proved to individuals via reason that I am more than simply this body; if this body disintegrates, I will still exist and I am not annihilated. Disbelievers who deny the resurrection claim: “And he produces arguments against Us, and he forgets his own creation. He says, “Who will revive the bones when they have decayed?” (Ya-Sin:78).
Who will revive these decayed bones? The deniers would take the bone in their hand, squeeze it, and say: Look, this bone will turn into powder. Its parts are disintegrated. Who wants to revive? The question is raised due to the lack of knowledge about the soul or “Self-Knowledge”. They had no idea that this body would be annihilated, but the soul would not. Your soul (your “I”) continues to live and exist in the world after death. If people gain self-knowledge, the principles of religion will be proved to them via rational proofs.
By proving the immateriality of our “I” (“Nafs”, “Soul”), resurrection is proved, and by the rule of “The unity of Perceived and Perceiver”, reward and punishment are proved. This rule says that whatever you do will be united with you and will appear to you after death. You see all those actions because they have become one with your soul. Man understands that every action has a punishment. The action has not disappeared; only the appearance of the action is destroyed. Its inner is united with you and will not be separated from you. You will be united with your actions; you will be rewarded and punished with your actions.
He sees the punishments or rewards for every action he has done, whether it is a smile, disrespect, bad manners, or good manners. “Whoever has done an atom’s weight of good will see it. (7) And whoever has done an atom’s weight of evil will see it. (8)” (Az-Zalzala:7-8).
Allameh Hassanzadeh commented: “If someone does not read the books of transcendental wisdom and mysticism, he is lame in understanding most of the Islamic teachings”. These were mystics themselves; they were God’s guardians; they were monotheists, true Muslims, true believers who understood the meanings of God’s book and Ahl-Al Bayt narrations and came to write philosophical and mystical books. Here, we talk about true philosophers and mystics, which are few.
In the past, many people opposed philosophy and mysticism, but now there are fewer, although there are still stubborn religious opponents. When you approach them, you see that their hands are really empty. They do not have anything clear to say about Quranic monotheism, resurrection, free will, determinism, revelations, angels, heaven, hell, etc.
For example, in Nahj al-Balagha, there are sermons of Amir al-Mu’minin (A) about monotheism; someone who is not familiar with philosophy and mysticism, even if he is a scientist or a great scholar will not be able to explain one of these sermons at all.
Praise be to Allah, Creator of people; He has spread the earth. He makes streams flow and vegetation grow on highlands. His primality has no beginning, nor has His eternity any end. He is the First and Last. He is the everlasting without limit. Foreheads bow before Him, and lips declare His oneness. He determined the limits of things at the time of His creating them, keeping Himself away from any likeness. Imagination cannot surmise Him within the limits of movements, limbs, or senses. It cannot be said about Him: “whence,” and no time limit can be attributed to Him by saying “till”. He is apparent, but it cannot be said: “from what”. He is hidden, but it cannot be said: “in what”. He is not a body which can die, nor is He veiled so as to be enclosed therein. He is not near to things by way of touch, nor is He remote from them by way of separation. The gazing of people’s eyes is not hidden from Him, nor the repetition of words, nor the glimpse of hillocks, nor the tread of a footstep in the dark night or in the deep gloom, where the shining moon casts its light, and the effulgent sun comes in its wake, through its setting and appearing again and again with the rotation of time and periods, by the approach of the advancing night or the passing away of the running day. He precedes every extremity and limit and every counting and numbering. He is far above what those whose regard is limited attribute to Him, such as the qualities of measure, having extremities, living in a house, and dwelling in abodes, because limits are meant for creation and are attributable only to other than Allah. Allah, the Originator, from naught He did not create things from eternal matter nor after ever-existing examples, but He created whatever He created, and then He fixed limits thereto, and He shaped whatever He shaped and gave the best shape thereto. Nothing can disobey Him, but the obedience of something is of no benefit to Him. His knowledge about those who died in the past is the same as His knowledge about the remaining survivors, and His knowledge about whatever there is in the high skies is like His knowledge of whatever there is in the low earth. (This is one of the monotheistic sermons (162)in public spoken in a Mosque among normal people 1400 years ago).
A scholar from Qom once said, “Back in the day, we were interested in philosophy and eager to visit our teacher’s home.” It was very difficult and challenging to reach his house since people, especially religious ones, believed that philosophers and mystics were unbelievers and encouraged the community to stay away from them. He stated that we carefully watched either side of the street to make sure no one saw us while entering his house. This was how things used to be. Dears, in the past, they used to go to the cellars and learn and speak about these topics. So, learn this spiritual knowledge as much as you can since this divine table might not be available tomorrow.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi (A great Shia scholar) banned philosophy. He declared that there would be no tuition for anyone attending Allameh Tabatabai’s (Great Quran interpreter and philosopher) philosophy course. Allameh Tabatabai stated: “I’ll teach; I don’t care”. Then he said: Oh God, these students, who have no financial source except tuition fees, will starve to death if they are deprived of this tuition fee. What should the poor people do? Should I close the class? He then said: I took Hafez and opened it and realized that I have to continue. Mr. Montazeri was a student at that time. He went to see Ayatullah Boroujerdi and said: Sir, why did you ban philosophy? He replied, I saw a student with an Asfar book (Mulla Sadra philosophy book) under his arm, and he was saying, I am God.
Mr. Montazeri said: “Sir, he made a mistake; he did not understand; it does not prove that philosophy is invalid.” Then Mr. Boroujerdi said: Yes, I studied philosophy myself, but we used to go secretly in the cellars and study philosophy. Mr. Montazeri told Ayatollah Boroujerdi that the young men are now flooded with so many different ideas that jurisprudence is not the answer to these questions. The students must be armed with the weapon of philosophy to be able to answer. Later, Ayatullah Boroujerdi removed the ban.
Can you imagine how much Allameh Tabatabaei and Allameh Hassanzadeh tried to save philosophy and true Islamic mysticism? Once, Allameh Hassanzadeh said that 11 times they have tried to kill me, they have tried to assassinate me, but they have failed, now other than the insults I have heard and bad letters I have received. Imam Ali (A) said: “People are enemies of what they do not know”. They hate what they do not know. They do not go to find knowledge about it.
Muhammad Mahdi Me’marian
All praise is to God to the extent that He deserves it.
