The lower self (nafs)

In Sufism, the nafs is the lower self, the center of desire and appetite that must be disciplined and purified. In its raw state it drives a person toward their own interest and craving. Bāyazīd Bistāmī's naming of the nafs as the greatest veil between himself and the Real shows that this structure is not an external enemy but the self itself. The Sufi path aims not to destroy the nafs but to ripen it.