The path of wayfaring to Allah
We begin by
praising Allah and we thank Him for allowing us to gather and learn this sacred
knowledge. This is a bounty from Allah that He allows us to do so and that we
are in the nur of the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa aalihi
wa sahbihi wa sallam.
During the last lesson, we discussed the 15th counsel of Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali where he talks about the shariah and putting our knowledge into action. Whoever wants to engage in a good deed, then he should do it according to the prescription given to us by the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam as much as possible and follow and implement his way as much as possible. In doing so, one can ensure that it is accepted by Allah, that it has an effect on your heart and soul, and that after you pass away the effect remains.
There are actions prescribed to us by Allah outwardly like fasting and salah. These have an outward form that we present to Allah. The most sacred thing that Allah looks at when performing an act of worship is the spiritual state of your heart at the time of performing that particular ibadah. If you want to ensure that your ibadah is accepted by Allah, pay attention to the state of your heart at the time of performing that ibadah and when you are ending that ibadah. Try to have presence of mind at the beginning and end of that act of ibadah. For example, at the time that you enter into salah and say “Allahu akbar” ensure that there is nothing in your heart except Allah as this ensures that your heart is present therefore when your tongue recites it is with the full remembrance of Allah by His grace. Also ensure that you have this presence of heart at the time of giving salaam at the end of the salah. Know that if your heart is engaged at the beginning and the end of an act, then your act will be accepted by Allah. If there is any deficiency in between, Allah will unite the two and He will remove any deficiency in that inshaAllah.
Each day your book of deeds are presented to Allah. At Fajr time, the angels of the day shift come down and at the time of Maghrib they go up and the angels for the night shift come down. If you pray Fajr in its time and you pray Maghrib at its time, then these actions are presented to Allah and are pleasing to Him and by doing so Allah protects you from the shaytan. The one who prays Fajr in congregation and Maghrib in congregation, Allah protects him from the shaytan. For the person who prays Fajr in its time, especially in congregation, it is very difficult for this person to commit acts of disobedience against Allah because Allah is protecting him from the shaytan.
Abu Hamid Al Ghazali continues, “This path can be traversed by fighting one’s whims and selfish desires by spiritual exercise and not through falsity and wrong practices.”
Know that when it comes to the path of spiritual wayfaring to Allah (suluk) there are two meanings. There is the suluk al ‘aam (the general person) and suluk al khaas (the elite). The first, suluk of the general person, is treading the straight path which Allah enjoined every single Muslim to walk upon. This is if the person adheres to fulfilling the commands of Allah and avoiding that which has been forbidden by Allah. The ending of the straight path (siratal mustaqeem) is Paradise – at various levels in general. All the people who say la ilaha illa Allah do this as it is open to the general.
In terms of the suluk al khaas, it is a higher rank. Allah considers all the ummah special, however, when it comes to this particular path, it is a difficult path because you are seeking something higher. Only a few people are able to tread this path because it requires a lot of patience and persistence. Most people get tired along this path and only a few stay firm along it. Allah says in the Quran that many of the earlier generations will be of this category and fewer of the later generations will be of this category.
The entire ummah of the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam are of the khawas and are special to Allah because the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam has the highest rank of all that has ever been created. Whoever has an association with the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam will carry his greatness because he salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam is great. Whatever action you partake which is related to the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam or any sayings that come out of your mouth because of what he taught such as eating food by starting with bismillah carries a greatness because it comes from him. Those of the ahl al bayt, the companions, and the ummah all carry a greatness because of an association with him salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. You have been elevated just by the fact that you are of his ummah salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam and this is a gift from Allah. You didn’t ask for it but Allah gave it to you as a gift. How do we as believers protect such a gift that Allah has given us to tread such a path?
Each person of the ummah has been elevated by relation to the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. There is a higher rank which is to be the best of his ummah, the best of the best, and that requires hard work, striving against the self, breaking the inclinations of the soul, and going against one’s desires.
Before going into detail, there are some foundations that must be understood so there is no confusion when going ahead. When it comes to this particular path (suluk), know that while you are treading this path you need to be with Allah and His Messenger salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. When you tread this path, Allah will allow you to taste of the presence (الحضور), the witnessing over you (الشهود), the nearness (القرب), and the love (الحب) of Allah in this dunya before you reach the aakhirah. If Allah allows you to taste any of this, He is giving you a single drop of the droplets of divine love and this will result in you being unconscious of even your own existence. Nothing will affect you. If someone would prick a needle into you, you would not feel it because you are unconscious of your own existence. It will be as though you are living in Paradise on earth. There are very few who are experiencing this. Allah says, “Whoever fears Allah, Allah grants him two Jannahs.”
There is a difference between the people of Allah and the people of the world. The people of Allah (who taste Jannah on earth), ask Allah to make their lives longer so they can continue in their station of excellence. They are in an ultimate state of tranquility of heart and mind. The people of the world, in contrast, seek a long life so they can continue in the enjoyment of the desires, chasing their wealth, and chasing all that which has an ending. These people do not realize that they are punishing themselves, but they are unaware because Allah has blinded them spiritually.
Every moment that we live in this earth having not tasted the love of Allah, in essence, is a punishment. It is a pain that we should be feeling. We will not feel this pain until we are on our deathbeds. At that point, we will understand that we have been punishing ourselves our entire life. Allah will reveal to you, at the time of your death, the ultimate regret. Thus, don’t let such opportunities pass you by where you can live in this world as though you are in Jannah achieving such a high rank. For those people who let it pass them by, they are exposing themselves to spiritual punishment because they sold that which is expensive to purchase that which is cheap. For example, you have a lot of gold and you go to someone “I will give you five kilograms of gold for that rock.” One who does it is crazy. The person who sold his aakhirah for this dunya is even worse than such a person who purchases a rock with gold.
Every moment in which you are living in this life and you are not tasting not the divine love of Allah is a punishment. The soul will understand how it is a punishment upon its meeting with Allah. Another example is of a child from ages 1-3, and he likes to play with toys. You give the child a toy to play with and he loves it. Then you take the toy from the child and instead you give him money. The child will of course cry because he doesn’t understand. To him, he sees taking away the toy and sees it as a punishment. Likewise, if we are busy playing with the dunya, when it is taken away, we will be upset like the child yet Allah is offering divine blessings from Him, eternal life and happiness.
How can we reach such ranks of tasting the connection with Allah? We need to know that we have enemies. In order to wage a war against the enemy, one has to know the enemy.
An enemy will do three things
Either:
1) make you stronger,
2) disturb your mission,
3) delay your reaching Allah.
Allah says in the Quran that some of you will be enemies to each other. This is the sunnah of Allah on the earth.
There are 3 enemies:
We are trying to summarize things here. To go into details will require volumes such as the Ihya of Imam Ghazali. We are living in times when people’s aspirations have diminished, so we are trying to do what we can and grab onto what we can.
Cure For Dealing With These Enemies
What if the person walking on the way stops and asks “why are you bothering me?” Or he throws rocks at the dog. It may be that the dog could possibly walk away. What is the meaning of you stopping and addressing the dog? This means that the dog has managed to delay you along your path to reach your destination. Sometimes the dog himself will not be afraid of you. What Shaytan is trying to do is delay you along the path, so you become occupied with him and have forgot the journey. It could be the dog itself has rabies and some sickness, so no matter how many rocks you throw at him, it doesn’t bother him. He could actually attack you and tear off your flesh and mauls you to death and kills you. This is all because you paid attention to the dog in the first place. Had you avoided the dog, you could have avoided the delay and even getting hurt.
Sometimes the Shaytan tries to delay you, if not in real life, then in your dreams. For example, someone made the intention to make hajj and made all the arrangements to go. He then dreams of something that disturbs him like a car accident or something and wakes up and says he can’t go to sleep.
Any time that there is a delay in performing an act of obedience to Allah, this is the Shaytan. Allah is the one who determines who goes to Heaven or Hell and invites you accordingly. Shaytan can’t force you do to anything, but he is trying to disturb you and put things in your heart. With dreams, you need to know how to interpret them and go to people who are qualified in doing so and don’t react just by your own interpretation.
Another example is a couple who are happily married. The Shaytan then shows one spouse with another person. The spouse wakes up and then tries to investigate.
The only way to cure yourself of the Shaytan is to cut him off and not pay attention to him.
The forbidden is that which is known, so we will move onto the mubah. It could be that a person avoids the haram, but he enjoys food and eating, or he is infatuated by his looks and dress, or he is very concerned about having a nice home, or he is a big fan of perfumes. All these things are mubah (permissible) however they can affect you in such a way that they take residence in your heart that they occupy you and you become a slave to these things.
For example, a man has a particular food on his mind which he has been wishing for all day and he comes home to find his wife has cooked something else. So he goes crazy, shouts at her and beats her. Unfortunately, we have seen a man throws the three talaq (divorce) on his wife because she did not make him his favourite foods. This is because he let his nafs go to the mubah. Even a simple thing like food, he let him overtake it.
In summary, how do we understand how the nafs reaches the stage where a person engages in committing acts which are forbidden to Allah? This is because ultimately there is a deficiency in your relationship with Allah and this goes back to the salah, the five daily prayers. This is the cornerstone of your life. It is absolutely essential to protect you from that which is forbidden by Allah.
Allah says in the Quran that the salah enables ones to avoid the fahsha wa al munkar. Therefore, when you enter into salah after perfecting your wudhu with presence of heart and mind, taking heed of the time of the salah, trying to pray in salah in congregation, entering into prayer in the state of khushu’(fear of Allah), and respecting the salah that you are performing, all of this provides a shield for you against falling into sin. Most people that fall into sin or commit acts of disobedience to Allah, it is usually because of the following:
Your deficiency in salah makes is easier to disobey Allah.
For example, a person who has a low income of perhaps a couple of thousand of dirhams a month (a few hundred dollars a month), and he wishes he lived in a villa and drove a nice car. He knows with his small income, it is difficult to get what he wants. He can’t borrow money from people because they know he won’t be able to pay him back, so he borrows from the bank which charges him interest. Because of the love of the dunya, his own nafs led him into the path of entering into that which is haram. Allah says in the Quran, “Have you seen the one who takes as his Lord his own nafs?” Allah is saying it as a statement and at the same time how ridiculous it is. If you want the dunya to chase you and for you not to be the slave of the dunya, take from the dunya what you need to be a perfect ‘abd in the sight of Allah. If you do that, you take only that which is needed to serve Allah. You’ll find the dunya running after you.
How do you put out the fire of the inclination of the nafs? You need to do it with the sword of training or disciplining the nafs. For example, if the nafs calls you to something that it desires, you address the nafs and say “we will partake in that which you desire, but we also need to pray two raka’at at the same time.” The nafs will say, “I want to enjoy this and you want to enjoin in prayer.” There is a give and take here where you force yourself to keep praying and praying these two raka’at and the nafs starts to understand. You will not understand this until you try this yourself. Through repetition, resolve, pushing, and resistance, the nafs will slowly start associating any enjoyment of the dunya with some form of ‘ibadah. Slowly you will start to taste the sweetness of the salah and your love and attraction to the dunya will diminish. The nafs will then submit when you are strong. This can be a year or two or five or ten years, etc. battle until you taste the sweetness in your worship. Only then you will reach the point of nafs al mutmainah – the resassured, comfortable, safe nafs. You have reached a point of safety. This is where Allah says, “O reassured nafs, return to your Lord and enter into My Jannah.” You need to nourish your nafs then with the zhikr of Allah. Allah also says, “Take shield with patience and salaat (prayer).” Depend on these to take care of your nafs.
This is just a summary of training the nafs. It requires a trainer along the way to help you and a life of striving and effort, including many sittings with the scholars. However, it is possible that by tasting the subject it can help us along the way. This is a prescription and those who can put it into practice, inshaAllah, Allah will open up a way for them and give them success.
During the last lesson, we discussed the 15th counsel of Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali where he talks about the shariah and putting our knowledge into action. Whoever wants to engage in a good deed, then he should do it according to the prescription given to us by the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam as much as possible and follow and implement his way as much as possible. In doing so, one can ensure that it is accepted by Allah, that it has an effect on your heart and soul, and that after you pass away the effect remains.
There are actions prescribed to us by Allah outwardly like fasting and salah. These have an outward form that we present to Allah. The most sacred thing that Allah looks at when performing an act of worship is the spiritual state of your heart at the time of performing that particular ibadah. If you want to ensure that your ibadah is accepted by Allah, pay attention to the state of your heart at the time of performing that ibadah and when you are ending that ibadah. Try to have presence of mind at the beginning and end of that act of ibadah. For example, at the time that you enter into salah and say “Allahu akbar” ensure that there is nothing in your heart except Allah as this ensures that your heart is present therefore when your tongue recites it is with the full remembrance of Allah by His grace. Also ensure that you have this presence of heart at the time of giving salaam at the end of the salah. Know that if your heart is engaged at the beginning and the end of an act, then your act will be accepted by Allah. If there is any deficiency in between, Allah will unite the two and He will remove any deficiency in that inshaAllah.
Each day your book of deeds are presented to Allah. At Fajr time, the angels of the day shift come down and at the time of Maghrib they go up and the angels for the night shift come down. If you pray Fajr in its time and you pray Maghrib at its time, then these actions are presented to Allah and are pleasing to Him and by doing so Allah protects you from the shaytan. The one who prays Fajr in congregation and Maghrib in congregation, Allah protects him from the shaytan. For the person who prays Fajr in its time, especially in congregation, it is very difficult for this person to commit acts of disobedience against Allah because Allah is protecting him from the shaytan.
Abu Hamid Al Ghazali continues, “This path can be traversed by fighting one’s whims and selfish desires by spiritual exercise and not through falsity and wrong practices.”
Know that when it comes to the path of spiritual wayfaring to Allah (suluk) there are two meanings. There is the suluk al ‘aam (the general person) and suluk al khaas (the elite). The first, suluk of the general person, is treading the straight path which Allah enjoined every single Muslim to walk upon. This is if the person adheres to fulfilling the commands of Allah and avoiding that which has been forbidden by Allah. The ending of the straight path (siratal mustaqeem) is Paradise – at various levels in general. All the people who say la ilaha illa Allah do this as it is open to the general.
In terms of the suluk al khaas, it is a higher rank. Allah considers all the ummah special, however, when it comes to this particular path, it is a difficult path because you are seeking something higher. Only a few people are able to tread this path because it requires a lot of patience and persistence. Most people get tired along this path and only a few stay firm along it. Allah says in the Quran that many of the earlier generations will be of this category and fewer of the later generations will be of this category.
The entire ummah of the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam are of the khawas and are special to Allah because the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam has the highest rank of all that has ever been created. Whoever has an association with the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam will carry his greatness because he salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam is great. Whatever action you partake which is related to the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam or any sayings that come out of your mouth because of what he taught such as eating food by starting with bismillah carries a greatness because it comes from him. Those of the ahl al bayt, the companions, and the ummah all carry a greatness because of an association with him salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. You have been elevated just by the fact that you are of his ummah salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam and this is a gift from Allah. You didn’t ask for it but Allah gave it to you as a gift. How do we as believers protect such a gift that Allah has given us to tread such a path?
Each person of the ummah has been elevated by relation to the Prophet Muhammad salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. There is a higher rank which is to be the best of his ummah, the best of the best, and that requires hard work, striving against the self, breaking the inclinations of the soul, and going against one’s desires.
Before going into detail, there are some foundations that must be understood so there is no confusion when going ahead. When it comes to this particular path (suluk), know that while you are treading this path you need to be with Allah and His Messenger salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. When you tread this path, Allah will allow you to taste of the presence (الحضور), the witnessing over you (الشهود), the nearness (القرب), and the love (الحب) of Allah in this dunya before you reach the aakhirah. If Allah allows you to taste any of this, He is giving you a single drop of the droplets of divine love and this will result in you being unconscious of even your own existence. Nothing will affect you. If someone would prick a needle into you, you would not feel it because you are unconscious of your own existence. It will be as though you are living in Paradise on earth. There are very few who are experiencing this. Allah says, “Whoever fears Allah, Allah grants him two Jannahs.”
There is a difference between the people of Allah and the people of the world. The people of Allah (who taste Jannah on earth), ask Allah to make their lives longer so they can continue in their station of excellence. They are in an ultimate state of tranquility of heart and mind. The people of the world, in contrast, seek a long life so they can continue in the enjoyment of the desires, chasing their wealth, and chasing all that which has an ending. These people do not realize that they are punishing themselves, but they are unaware because Allah has blinded them spiritually.
Every moment that we live in this earth having not tasted the love of Allah, in essence, is a punishment. It is a pain that we should be feeling. We will not feel this pain until we are on our deathbeds. At that point, we will understand that we have been punishing ourselves our entire life. Allah will reveal to you, at the time of your death, the ultimate regret. Thus, don’t let such opportunities pass you by where you can live in this world as though you are in Jannah achieving such a high rank. For those people who let it pass them by, they are exposing themselves to spiritual punishment because they sold that which is expensive to purchase that which is cheap. For example, you have a lot of gold and you go to someone “I will give you five kilograms of gold for that rock.” One who does it is crazy. The person who sold his aakhirah for this dunya is even worse than such a person who purchases a rock with gold.
Every moment in which you are living in this life and you are not tasting not the divine love of Allah is a punishment. The soul will understand how it is a punishment upon its meeting with Allah. Another example is of a child from ages 1-3, and he likes to play with toys. You give the child a toy to play with and he loves it. Then you take the toy from the child and instead you give him money. The child will of course cry because he doesn’t understand. To him, he sees taking away the toy and sees it as a punishment. Likewise, if we are busy playing with the dunya, when it is taken away, we will be upset like the child yet Allah is offering divine blessings from Him, eternal life and happiness.
How can we reach such ranks of tasting the connection with Allah? We need to know that we have enemies. In order to wage a war against the enemy, one has to know the enemy.
An enemy will do three things
Either:
1) make you stronger,
2) disturb your mission,
3) delay your reaching Allah.
Allah says in the Quran that some of you will be enemies to each other. This is the sunnah of Allah on the earth.
There are 3 enemies:
- Shaytan
- Desires/Inclinations of the Nafs which is even stronger than Shaytan
- The Dunya – meaning everything
that distracts one from Allah. Obviously there are things in the dunya will
help you on the path.
We are trying to summarize things here. To go into details will require volumes such as the Ihya of Imam Ghazali. We are living in times when people’s aspirations have diminished, so we are trying to do what we can and grab onto what we can.
Cure For Dealing With These Enemies
- When dealing with the Shaytan, ignore him totally. If you pay attention
to him, then he will ensnare you. Imagine yourself walking along a path and
there is a dog. When dogs meet strangers, it can be distracting or scary. If
you continue walking along without paying attention, the dog will leave you. If
you show your fear, you put yourself in danger. This might be easy to say but
difficult to implement.
What if the person walking on the way stops and asks “why are you bothering me?” Or he throws rocks at the dog. It may be that the dog could possibly walk away. What is the meaning of you stopping and addressing the dog? This means that the dog has managed to delay you along your path to reach your destination. Sometimes the dog himself will not be afraid of you. What Shaytan is trying to do is delay you along the path, so you become occupied with him and have forgot the journey. It could be the dog itself has rabies and some sickness, so no matter how many rocks you throw at him, it doesn’t bother him. He could actually attack you and tear off your flesh and mauls you to death and kills you. This is all because you paid attention to the dog in the first place. Had you avoided the dog, you could have avoided the delay and even getting hurt.
Sometimes the Shaytan tries to delay you, if not in real life, then in your dreams. For example, someone made the intention to make hajj and made all the arrangements to go. He then dreams of something that disturbs him like a car accident or something and wakes up and says he can’t go to sleep.
Any time that there is a delay in performing an act of obedience to Allah, this is the Shaytan. Allah is the one who determines who goes to Heaven or Hell and invites you accordingly. Shaytan can’t force you do to anything, but he is trying to disturb you and put things in your heart. With dreams, you need to know how to interpret them and go to people who are qualified in doing so and don’t react just by your own interpretation.
Another example is a couple who are happily married. The Shaytan then shows one spouse with another person. The spouse wakes up and then tries to investigate.
The only way to cure yourself of the Shaytan is to cut him off and not pay attention to him.
- When dealing with the inclinations of the nafs, know it is a very wide
topic that can be studied. However, in summary, know that the nafs has two
desires or inclinations.
- haram actions –
forbidden acts
- mubah actions–
no sin or reward in doing them
The forbidden is that which is known, so we will move onto the mubah. It could be that a person avoids the haram, but he enjoys food and eating, or he is infatuated by his looks and dress, or he is very concerned about having a nice home, or he is a big fan of perfumes. All these things are mubah (permissible) however they can affect you in such a way that they take residence in your heart that they occupy you and you become a slave to these things.
For example, a man has a particular food on his mind which he has been wishing for all day and he comes home to find his wife has cooked something else. So he goes crazy, shouts at her and beats her. Unfortunately, we have seen a man throws the three talaq (divorce) on his wife because she did not make him his favourite foods. This is because he let his nafs go to the mubah. Even a simple thing like food, he let him overtake it.
In summary, how do we understand how the nafs reaches the stage where a person engages in committing acts which are forbidden to Allah? This is because ultimately there is a deficiency in your relationship with Allah and this goes back to the salah, the five daily prayers. This is the cornerstone of your life. It is absolutely essential to protect you from that which is forbidden by Allah.
Allah says in the Quran that the salah enables ones to avoid the fahsha wa al munkar. Therefore, when you enter into salah after perfecting your wudhu with presence of heart and mind, taking heed of the time of the salah, trying to pray in salah in congregation, entering into prayer in the state of khushu’(fear of Allah), and respecting the salah that you are performing, all of this provides a shield for you against falling into sin. Most people that fall into sin or commit acts of disobedience to Allah, it is usually because of the following:
- being irregular in their salah
- delaying salah to the last moment
- praying only four prayers but being deficient in the
fifth i.e. fajr salah
- performing wudhu improperly
- not caring to pray in congregation
- praying the salah outside of its time
Your deficiency in salah makes is easier to disobey Allah.
- The love of the dunya is linked to our desires as it what causes
people to engage in haram or to be called to the desires of the nafs which
is falling in love with that which is mubah.
For example, a person who has a low income of perhaps a couple of thousand of dirhams a month (a few hundred dollars a month), and he wishes he lived in a villa and drove a nice car. He knows with his small income, it is difficult to get what he wants. He can’t borrow money from people because they know he won’t be able to pay him back, so he borrows from the bank which charges him interest. Because of the love of the dunya, his own nafs led him into the path of entering into that which is haram. Allah says in the Quran, “Have you seen the one who takes as his Lord his own nafs?” Allah is saying it as a statement and at the same time how ridiculous it is. If you want the dunya to chase you and for you not to be the slave of the dunya, take from the dunya what you need to be a perfect ‘abd in the sight of Allah. If you do that, you take only that which is needed to serve Allah. You’ll find the dunya running after you.
How do you put out the fire of the inclination of the nafs? You need to do it with the sword of training or disciplining the nafs. For example, if the nafs calls you to something that it desires, you address the nafs and say “we will partake in that which you desire, but we also need to pray two raka’at at the same time.” The nafs will say, “I want to enjoy this and you want to enjoin in prayer.” There is a give and take here where you force yourself to keep praying and praying these two raka’at and the nafs starts to understand. You will not understand this until you try this yourself. Through repetition, resolve, pushing, and resistance, the nafs will slowly start associating any enjoyment of the dunya with some form of ‘ibadah. Slowly you will start to taste the sweetness of the salah and your love and attraction to the dunya will diminish. The nafs will then submit when you are strong. This can be a year or two or five or ten years, etc. battle until you taste the sweetness in your worship. Only then you will reach the point of nafs al mutmainah – the resassured, comfortable, safe nafs. You have reached a point of safety. This is where Allah says, “O reassured nafs, return to your Lord and enter into My Jannah.” You need to nourish your nafs then with the zhikr of Allah. Allah also says, “Take shield with patience and salaat (prayer).” Depend on these to take care of your nafs.
This is just a summary of training the nafs. It requires a trainer along the way to help you and a life of striving and effort, including many sittings with the scholars. However, it is possible that by tasting the subject it can help us along the way. This is a prescription and those who can put it into practice, inshaAllah, Allah will open up a way for them and give them success.