Malfuzat – Volume X — Page 507
17 May 1908 507 seeds of spirituality. And then again, just as the farmer irrigates his field or garden, similarly the spiritual garden of faith needs good deeds for its irrigation. Remember it well that faith without righteous deeds is as useless as a magnificent garden would be without a stream or other source of irrigation. Trees may be of a superb quality, capable of bearing high quality fruit, but if the owner grows careless in watering them, the result of this is something that is known to everyone. The same is the case of the tree of faith in spiritual life. Faith is like a tree for which the righteous deeds of man work like streams in the spiritual sense for its irrigation. Furthermore, just as a farmer is compelled to toil and trouble on top of seeding and watering, similarly God Almighty has required and necessitated spiritual striving for obtaining the comely fruits of spiritual blessings and bounties. Accordingly, He says: َو َنْيِذَّلا اْوُدَهاَج اَنْيِف ْمُهَّنَيِدْهَنَل اَنَلُبُس َو َنْيِذَّلا اْوُدَهاَج اَنْيِف ْمُهَّنَيِدْهَنَل اَنَلُبُس [‘And as for those who strive in Our path—We will surely guide them in Our ways’ ( S u rah al-‘Ankab u t, 29:70)]. 1 Three States of the Human Self The human soul is like a vine and it has three stages. Nafs-e- ammarah [the self that incites to evil]— Ammarah conveys a sense of exaggeration; ammarah means what takes one towards evil, one that drives towards the commission of much evil. 2 The second type of nafs [self ] is nafs-e-lawwamah [the 1. From Badr: You should not be content with light efforts, rather great striving is needed on this path ( Badr, vol. 7, no. 25, p. 5, dated 25 June 1908). 2. From Badr: One that turns to evil again and again ( Badr, vol. 7, no. 25, p. 5, dated 25 June 1908).