A04 Islamic Sense – Why Willpower Doesnt Work, Why Diets dont Work

Chapter Four, an Islamic model of mind and body.

The three part model of the Muslim mind will be familiar to anyone who's read my previous books, you can find a picture of it online, on my blog, or on my YouTube videos. Basically, it's a triangle where you have the knifes on the one side, and the intellect on the other. And at the top, you have your true self, which is the heart of your mind. Your conscious self, as you experienced yourself now is your heart. It is what a lot judges us on. But this part needs development and nurturance. Without it, we are more basic creatures dominated by the knifes which tends to overpower the intellect will turn it towards its own ends. As a result, we often confuse immediate desires and

temptations coming from the knifes with our true wiser wishes and better judgment.

The intellect is a servant, either of your heart or your knifes depending on which one has greater influence. Everyone is born with enough with an ego, a set of drives and emotions. And it is there for the rest of our life. The intellect should start to show itself in early childhood, while the essence of the heart, your self awareness, your empathy, and your rules of religion and so on. Only they're in sketch form. They take root in late childhood, and they grow throughout life through our parents and then our own efforts.

The heart is nurtured slowly and consciously by a person who wishes to become more balanced and complete in their life. One cannot survive effectively by intellect alone. There are many very intelligent people out there who are nonetheless prone to impulsivity, ego Crips, as much as anyone else. But the intellect can and does help us to plan for see and organize ourselves, looking for calm and logical ways to do things, if we use it correctly.

The second picture that's useful is how the knifes is connected to the physical body.

You'll again find that on my blog, or in my YouTube videos are in the book itself. In a physical sense, the nafs is the base of the brain, where your emotions and instincts are stored and where you also have the release of certain hormones and chemical messengers. It's connected to the body, all organs via a network of nerves and hormones. This is important to know because when we look closely, we will see how so much of the body deals with food reacts to hunger, and reacts to temptation and other emotions. And this is made clear when we map these connections out, and how they refer back to the knifes so where you feel hunger, anxiety, or satisfaction, or even your sleep wake cycle that

all happens at the base of the brain with enough is located. It also has a method for detecting your sugar levels, and a center which tells your pancreas to make insulin in response to your high blood sugar levels and controls the heart rate speeding up when you get more emotional, along with the breathing rate. And it's connected to the gut digestion and fullness signals are all transmitted by stretch receptors in the stomach and by other receptors which pick up on things like fats and proteins. And these signal back to the base of the brain to indicate that your full

manifest makes general signals to the body to either build itself up or break itself down. And it does so via hormones. The most principal of these is insulin, and we'll understand this more.

All of the signals and communications shown in this picture are directly influenced by and have an effect on the Nef itself. It's a two way connection with the body and the mind exchanging signals with each other in a way that's intended to create a finely balanced system which regulates itself

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