Nafs (Soul) Guidance
The Sufi Path of Self-Knowledge and Inner Awareness
“And by the stars they are guided.”
(Qur’an 16:16)
The Qur’an presents the stars as signs of guidance. Within Nafs (Soul) Guidance, this celestial guidance is approached symbolically as a means of turning inward. The journey therefore begins with a fundamental question:
What is my nafs?
Nafs Guidance is a process of self-knowledge. It helps the individual recognise how the nafs thinks, feels, desires, relates, acts, holds, gives, chooses and responds to life. Life unfolds through experiences, relationships, choices, changes, challenges and recurring themes. Each of these can become a doorway into deeper awareness. Within this process, Sufi Astrology provides the symbolic map.
Through its thirteen-planetary framework, the birth chart is used to explore how the nafs experiences life, how personal functions interact with broader developing influences, and how these patterns relate to awareness, choice, responsibility and direction.
In this way, Sufi Astrology reveals the symbolic map of the nafs, while Nafs Guidance helps the individual understand how that map is being lived through personal experience.
Sufi Astrology reveals the map. Nafs Guidance helps the individual understand how that map is being lived.
The Path of Nafs Guidance
The Experiencing Nafs
Developing Influences
Recognising the Patterns of the Nafs
From Possession to Entrustment
From Control to Surrender
Choice, Responsibility and Direction
Meaning and Purpose
The Role of the Guide
Nafs Guidance helps the individual recognise how the nafs experiences life, which developing influences are active, what meaning emerges through those experiences, and how personal choices create direction.
Life provides the experiences through which the nafs develops. The guide brings the symbolic language of Sufi Astrology together with the individual’s own life story.
Through this process, the individual gains a clearer understanding of:
how the nafs experiences everyday life
which themes repeatedly appear
how the six personal planetary functions operate
how the seven developing principles interact with those functions
what meaning emerges through recurring experiences
how possession can develop into entrustment
how control can open towards trust and surrender
how awareness expands choice
how choice develops responsibility
how repeated choices create direction
how direction relates to meaning and purpose
Who Is Nafs Guidance For?
Nafs Guidance is for those who wish to:
understand themselves more deeply through the patterns of their own life
recognise the meaning carried by recurring experiences and relationships
explore how identity, emotions, thoughts, values, desires and resources operate within the nafs
understand the developing influences active within their life experiences
develop a deeper awareness of possession, attachment and entrustment
explore the relationship between control, trust and surrender
become more aware of personal choice, responsibility and direction
understand the birth chart as a symbolic map of the nafs
bring Sufi Astrology and Sufi self-knowledge together within a coherent framework
explore the meaning and purpose of their life with greater awareness
At the heart of Nafs Guidance lies the Sufi principle:
“Whoever knows his/her nafs knows his/her Rabb.”
Nafs Guidance begins with knowing the nafs and gradually opens a deeper understanding of experience, awareness, responsibility, direction, meaning and purpose.