Minute with a Muslim #347 – Higher Self vs. Lower Self

So Allah subhanaw taala, you know, he chose specifically prophets to guide us. And that's something that a lot of people lose sight of the significance of. If Allah wanted to, he could have guided us in a lot of different ways he could have given us dreams, he could have given every single individual kind of like, inspiration, he could have sent down a book from the sky. But he specifically chose prophets main, our main source of guidance as the prophets. And one of the reasons there's a significant is because if the revelation had been given to us, as individuals, each one of us through dreams through inspiration, it's really difficult to distinguish between what

is kind of your best self, or what's your Higher Self calling you to do. And what's your lower self or your base self or your ego calling you to do. And many scholars talk about this, and that they mentioned a couple of ways for how to try to distinguish between those two kinds of influences. So one of the things has to do with or one of the ways you can tell has to do with

gratification, right instant gratification versus delayed gratification. If you're kind of thinking about getting a payback right away, maybe this thing is going to give you what you want right away, then it's very likely that this sort of motivation is from the lower self or the ego. Because the higher self is going to tend to delayed gratification, something where you've got to put in the work, it's going to take time, it's going to take patience, but the payoff is down the road.

Another way that you can distinguish between these two things is that the higher self is able to weigh the pros and cons, right. Because in real life, most of the time, it's not just clear black and white, one way is the best way and the other ways to absolute trash, that's usually it's a mixed bag. So the higher self, something where you're kind of soberly looking at a situation,

you're going to be able to recognize it's like, well, this option has good things about it. And it also has bad things about it. And this other option, yeah, there's some bad things, but there's a lot of good. Whereas when the lower self or the ego calls you to do something, it's like you forget that the bad exists, you know, you can only see the positives, you're blinded to any possibility that there's going to be any sort of negative thing. And then you even tell yourself, it's like, oh, if I get this thing, and then things that don't even make sense, it's like this is going to be better. And that's going to be better, I'm going to feel this way and whatever. And then how you can

tell this is the shaytaan is because once you actually do that thing, then you're going to experience some negative consequences. And it's going to hit you like a train. It's like, where did this come from? I had no, I have no idea this was going to happen in that way. That's because it's from the shaytaan. Anna's from the neffs.

Another way you can distinguish between the two is whether you're kind of assumptions are based off of proof or not. So the base cell for the shaytaan or the lower self, it's not going to base your assessment of the situation on proof or evidence, it's going to be like, well, if this happens, and if that happens, and if you're going to be stacking your What if What if what ifs to the point where the situation that you're thinking about is like so unlikely to happen. But you really just kind of like using your wishful thinking to convince yourself that it's going to be okay. Whereas the higher self, the self that is inclined to truth and obedience is going to be able to back up their sort of

assessment of the situation with proof. And to be able to say, either empirical proof like, well, I'm looking at this other individual, and they do something similar. And this is how it turned out for them. So I'm going to try to do something similar, or this is from the Koran, or this is scientifically proven or logical or et cetera, et cetera.

And one of the final ways, one of the final ways, how you can distinguish between these two influences the influence of the higher self, and the influence of the lower self is

kind of what's the feedback you're getting from those people around you? Right? So it's the Shara or shorter, you know, trying to ask other people their opinion and for their feedback is something that's very, very important in our religion. I will write about the Alon who said that nobody sought other people's opinions more than the prophets of Allah, Allah He was. And so if you've got trusted people in your life, and you're asking them as like, hey, what do you think about this? Or what do you think I should do here? And every single person or the majority of the people are giving you feedback.

like, Nah, don't do it. It's not a good idea. No, you're gonna regret it, it's now and you, you find yourself like, oh, I don't want to listen to them, I want to keep on doing it anyway, then you got to realize that this is the lower self, this is the ego. This is the shaytaan. That's, you know, inciting you to go down this course. Where as whereas, in the opposite scenario, if you're skeptical of it, you're like, Well, this is what I want to do, but I'm not really sure. And then your trusted advisors are giving you the feedback. It's like, yeah, you know what, that is a really good idea. No, you should definitely do that. You kind of get this kind of consensus around you that this is

what you should do, then you can pretty much be sure that this is the higher self this is the self that is trying to aspire to truth and to obedience that is guiding your way.