Spirituality #04 – Hold Yourself To Account!

You know, we are living in a culture nowadays, which basically people don't want to take accountability take stock of their own action. And this destroys relationships and destroys communities destroy societies, by in our tradition, Islamic tradition, the idea of self accountability was certainly one which was emphasized pretty deeply. And in fact, so much so that Allah has Allah. He's got an entire book on the matter in his magnum opus, his compendious work here along with Dean the masterpiece. And the Kitab is called the Book of Kitab. And what I cover and in Bahasa essentially been translated into English, which is the book of self examination and

vigilance, I'm going to be looking at the some of the notes I've taken and tell you some of the things that he has said in regards to self examination, both first of all, there are many acquire of the Anima. And speeches of the predecessors, which are very pertinent to this particular inquiry or the subject of inquiry achieved most I would say, of the predecessors is what Ahmed pop has said, which is that has worked for several popular to herself with that, hold yourselves to account before you are held to account I found very interesting about the book about this particular book is that Allah zali, he starts off by putting forward a trade analogy. And he does this throughout his book,

he makes analogies for states of mind and psychospiritual states. So to read some of it, he says, Know that when those who engage in commerce and deal in commodities, settle accounts, they seek a healthy profit. Hence, the trader availed himself of his associate, handing him his money for the trade and then settling his account with him is the same with the intellect Apple, as it does Commerce on the way to the hereafter its object and profit is the purification of the soul, because it's Felicity is through this list. It's basically good fortune or its success. It's very interesting how he phrases that because actually, he's what he's saying to us is, we should think of

purification, self examination in the same way as we would think about business, we should want to make the biggest profit possible. And of course, making the biggest profit possible. It's not just getting new business, which in this case, would be doing good deeds, but it's also making sure that the customers remain that we don't lose capital, or that we don't lose investment value. That, of course, means purifying ourselves. And the way he mentioned, this is very powerful. He considers the heart as the main organ is the main organ. And then there are seven members that lead to the hearts and which needs to be purified. And he mentioned that then the servant of God's counsel to soul

about the moments of his life after which he prefers counsel about his seven members. And what are those seven members the eye, ear, tongue, stomach, the private parts, hands and foot, these other seven members. In other words, one needs to keep track of what he is seeing what he is hearing what he is saying, especially saying and he's got an entire book on this in fact, as I like, but how we are words can get you in trouble in the many Hadith on the matter, you know, the atma or Jana, the prophesy Salam said that I guarantee Jana, we need that Allah guarantees it for those who are able to guarantee that which is between the two legs and the tooth and the jaw, basically. So this is and

then he goes into detail. It'll Hazari about all of the sudden things. We're holding yourself to account for those seven things. So he breaks it down into different few like categories. The first thing is you have to make a commitment to yourself, you have to condition this is called El Masato, you condition I am not going to do this things. I am not going to you say to yourself, speak a bad words, swear words, I'm not going to sweat, you know, I am not going to backbiting this person, I am not going to say and what is backbiting is the Kritika haka. democra. Hate is saying that about your brother, which he hates, or your sister, of course, do not say that which your brother Muslim

brother or sister will not like some form of cowardice don't do this as well, I am not going to see something which is haram, because it's difficult to do nowadays in the age that we're living in. But we have to do more Charata we have to condition ourselves for these kinds of things. And once you've done that, once you've conditioned yourself, then you start to examine yourself. So this is the stage two, which he mentions here. After you've said yourself, look, I'm not going to do this and everyone's going to fall into and this is goes back to a nefs lawanna A duck for answers that he swears little custom will be nefs in LA wham, swear by the self, reproach and soul, meaning you keep

exams so important that Allah actually even makes custom by it, which means he he swears by it, the reproaching so you keep going back to why have I done that regretted now in one culture because you shouldn't regret anything? I say you shouldn't regret anything except for your sins. And I see this is exactly how Islam you must regret your sins as a part of

net them. It's a part of Tober. Net them as part of October regretting as part of Tober. So after you've done the mug shot, then you have to be steadfast is the karma you have to have is the karma. Now you try your best to stay on the path that you're on. And then you do Maha Sabha, which is self examination. After the act, you do something bad you examine yourself now is to think of why did this happen? Just as you would in any situation life? Yeah, something happens. You get into a big argument with your spouse, you say something bad to your parents, you commit a major sin, you commit a minor sin, you look where you shouldn't be looking at you, then you sit with yourself after you've

committed this sin which we will all bound to commit. And you say to yourself that, you know, I Why did I do this? What triggered this behavior? Why did I fall into this? How can I make sure that I don't go into this again? So this is another thing you do? After you've done that and you go on to the next stage, which he mentioned and this is guys this is extremely important, let's be honest, because he mentioned here The fact is, this is in his fifth chapter. And this is travelator can really fast is when a person examines his soul he finds tempted he finds it tempted by sin, therefore he must punish it in manners described you mentioned that before you have to discipline

yourself wha clubber you don't just discipline your child you don't discipline this one or that will you discipline yourself as well how are you going to discipline yourself you can fast you can do this you can you can do men that you can stop yourself from having certain things if you don't discipline yourself life will discipline you, you see and so that is the next step. And then this is very powerful in this in the six chapters as he saw I say know that you you that your worst enemy is your soul inside you. It was created to incite ill and predisposed towards evil and desecration of a good so this once again it's a very interesting take and he starts going into a monologue and has

and he's got this very powerful way of just telling it how it is listen to what he says here. He says also, if a servant of yours knee a brother should confront you with something you dislike, what anger and loathing which you harbor for him yet how recklessly you then expose yourself to God's loving anger and stern punishment. You think you can bear His wrath far from it. If your cockiness has lulled you away from his painful wrath, then try for yourself. Put yourself under the sun or in the bath house for an hour ring your fingers close to the flame and find out how you bearer or are you deluded about God's nobility and favour his disinterestedness with respect to your acts of

obedience and worship. Why do you not rely on His kindness and the weightier matters of the world when a focus use you why Judas devise a strategy to repelled him without relying on God's kindness. You see, we are self deluded and he has a very powerful monologues. The book is filled with these kinds of models, one should have a systemized method of holding themselves to account and with that, I conclude this article Oracle's Light Water castle. If you enjoyed that and you want to watch the next episode, click here.