True freedom and presence arise not from eliminating suffering, but from understanding that our ingrained patterns of worry and control, often disguised as care, are the primary barriers to inner peace, and these patterns are deeply rooted in our physical bodies.
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Freedom begins when you realize the
voice that worries isn't the wisest,
it's the
oldest. Please don't think that because
you are unhappy, because there is pain
in your heart that you cannot practice
presence. It is exactly because there is
pain in your heart that communication
with your inner self is possible. Your
suffering and my suffering are the basic
condition for us to enter the universe's
heart and for the universe to enter our
hearts. Fun fact is you don't need chaos
to be tense. You don't need heartbreak
or danger or
catastrophe. Sometimes you're sitting on
a quiet morning, birds outside, your tea
still warm, and your chest still feels
like it's holding back a tidal wave.
This is the hidden genius of the ego.
It's a surveillance system. Its job is
to predict, to manage. Even when the
room is silent, the mind's satellite
dishes are spinning. What will I do
after this? What if I forget something?
Should I be more productive right now?
We tend to think that the ego is afraid
of pain. But main thing it is afraid is
a surprise. The obvious thing is that
you don't need to predict the future in
order to be present.
The moment you start simulating and
trying to account for every possible
failure or misstep, the nav steps in and
starts narrating life. What on earth is
NAF, you'll ask? NAF is a Sufi term, and
I'm bringing it in this video because it
will help you to identify your inner
patterns. NAF is something similar to
the ego, but when you hear the word ego,
you probably think of someone arrogant
and loud.
Ego in the way we speak about it today
is too big, too messy. It's the whole
scaffolding of me. But when everything
becomes ego, we stop seeing its inner
structure. It becomes invisible by being
too visible. And in this inflation,
something essential gets
lost. So NAF is not ego in the western
sense, but the self before purification.
There are seven levels of navs in
classical Sufi thought. At its lowest,
it's somewhat compulsive and reactive.
The lower unrefined self like an
unrefined marble or
crystal. What I find fascinating is that
the most dangerous level isn't the
beastlike naps that make one do evil
things. It's the subtle one that hides
behind virtue. the one that says I must
stay in control for the greater good or
I have to make sure everyone's
okay. It's naps in its most deceptive
form. Ego disguised as
care. We talk about ego like it's an
entity hungry for
attention. But most of the time, ego is
subtle. It hides in the voice that just
wants to be prepared. It wears concern
as a disguise. It feels like care. It
says, "I'm just trying to protect you. I
am your best
friend." And okay, if you don't want to
call it NAF, then there is a scientific
term for it, too. Neuroscience calls
this the default mode network,
DMN. A cluster of brain regions that
lights up when you're daydreaming,
self-reflecting, worrying. It's active
when you're not fully present. and its
voice often sounds like
introspection, but it's really
repetition. The DMN keeps running loops
to preserve a sense of self. Doesn't
care if you're happy, cares if you're
consistent, and the way it stays
important is by creating worry. A
tension in your chest, a faint clench in
the jaw, a tightness across the back.
You don't think you're stressed, but
something is holding on. And then the
thoughts begin. Small ones. Planning,
anticipating, replaying. But none of
them sound intrusive. They sound like
you. Pain in the body, especially
chronic or ambient pain. Often is the
DMN speaking. Somatic echo of the mind's
restlessness. That ache between your
shoulders when you're overwhelmed.
That's a thought your body doesn't have
words for. Often people carry tension in
the body. Tightness in the neck, frozen
gut, clenched fists without a clear
story. Feels like
personality. I'm just a tense person.
But what if you're just someone whose
nervous system was trained to stay
ready? And now that you found a path of
awakening, a path of surrender, it's not
a surprise you find it hard to let go.
So how do we this tense and alltime
ready people even begin to
surrender? In poly veagal theory, this
is your sympathetic response half
switched on, always semi-braced. And
that inner voice isn't anxiety. It's the
brain trying to justify the body's
alarm. Thoughts rush in to explain the
unease. Something bad is going to happen
or I should be doing more. But really,
your body is stuck in an old loop and
your thoughts are just trying to keep up.
up.
Tension is the biography of the ego.
Wilhelm Reich, the student of Freud,
wandered too far for the psychoanalytic
world to follow. He maybe said things
that world was not ready to hear at that
moment and it almost got
lost. He implied that the ego is not
just an idea. It is a muscular
contraction. Your posture is your autobiography.
autobiography.
The way you hold your jaw, the slight
forward lean, the way your shoulders
round in, these are gestures of a self
trying to survive. They're not conscious
choices. They're residues. A collection
of reflexes sculpted by
emotion. Your nervous system remembers
everything your mind has dismissed. Most
navs aren't proud or greedy. Most navs
are afraid. They're trying to hold the
world still so that nothing surprising
can happen. They live in your diaphragm,
your solar plexus, your neck. They want
predictability and the body is their
architecture. So when you sit on the
couch and start thinking about the
future, your body braces, your back
tenses, your jaw locks, nothing is
happening, but your imagined self is
under siege. The usual meditation
instruction is to rest as awareness. But
that only makes sense once you realize
awareness has been clenched into a
shape. A shape that feels like you. So
when you try to be still, your body
aches. You think meditation isn't
working, but really you're just meeting
the architecture of the ego in fasia, in
breath, in subtle
tension. The ego wears pain like
clothing. The quiet anxiety, that sense
of needing to plan ahead, to stay alert.
As tricky as it sounds, ego doesn't come
as a villain. It comes as care, as
responsibility, as vigilance. But it's
the same ego. Afraid of stillness,
afraid of
surrender. Start by watching when your
body hardens. Not during some traumatic
event or mentally hard days, but in
daily life, too.
The problem isn't the voice in the head,
but the belief that this voice is the
only one worth listening to. And this
belief that thought equals self is
reinforced both through mental loops and
through bodily tension. The very muscles
of the face and spine participate in
this illusion of control. So the real
invitation isn't to kill the ego or even
to quiet the mind. It's to soften the
body where the ego hides best.
in subtle bracing and constant physical
editing of presence. The illusion of
control lives in the muscle before it
lives in the thought. And perhaps the
clearest sign that you're close to the
natural self isn't some mystical
experience. But the moment you stop
preparing and let reality happen without
you needing to hold it
together. This is the art of not
defending yourself from the moment. We
are taught that vigilance is wisdom.
that only the alert survive. But
spiritually that same alertness often
becomes the very wall between you and
the living
current. Most people are not tense
because life is hard. They are tense
because they are trying constantly to
outthink the
now. Every part of them leans forward,
tries to get ahead of the next thing or
folds inward in defense. To relax
spiritually is not to go limp. It is to
stop negotiating with life. To stop
strategizing and positioning yourself.
It is to unclench not just the fists and
jaw but the story of who you think you
need to be in this
moment. The Sufi mystics often spoke of
tawakul trust in the divine. When the
body believes in the mystery it softens.
This is different from laziness or
pacivity. This softness is deeply alive.
It means allowing experience to touch
you without needing to shield and label
and shape it. Non-meditation is a
similar thing. The moment the observer
dissolves and awareness simply is.
Nothing is being manipulated. Thoughts
pass, feelings pass. Relaxation is not a
reward for healing. It is the condition
that allows healing to
start. And it begins with the body. A
subtle shift. The shoulders drop. The
breath deepens. The spine is no longer
armored like a weapon. When you no
longer need to deserve peace. You stop
gripping the world like it's a problem
to solve. You allow mystery in. In this
relaxation, there is a deeper
intelligence not born of effort, but of
coherence with life. You don't force the
flower open. You make space and it blooms.
blooms.
The same is true for your being. When
you relax completely, you begin to
remember who you were before you were
taught to
contract. Please don't run away from
your suffering. Embrace it and cherish
it. Go to the inner self, sit with it,
and show it your pain. It will look at
you with loving kindness, compassion,
and mindfulness, and show you ways to
embrace your suffering and look deeply
into it. With understanding and
compassion, you will be able to heal the
wounds in your heart and the wounds in
the world. The Buddha called suffering a
holy truth because our suffering has the
capacity of showing us the path to
liberation. Embrace your suffering and
Sufi mystic Bazid Bastami said, "I went
from God to God until they told me,
"Leave yourself
behind. Leave
yourself." The rehearsed one, the
explaining one, the tight one. That's
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