Humans as species in civilization watch each other and mindfully, or not, judge each other in figuring out the deeper conflict someone else is enduring in life. The feeling of being watched starts rolling the wheel where the Self keeps prioritizing how to protect from creating a damaging perception of itself to others and flares up an intention to deceive. Self first convincingly lies to itself before deceiving others. Deception becomes the tool if life is treated as a game, however, sincerity comes in the scenario when the Self is genuinely fearful of the gravity of hypocrisy. The feeling of being watched, then, lets the Self check its commitment to its values to feel excited about a Day when it is certainly going to be accountable for an endless life called ‘Hereafter’. Those values ignite the thrust to shun deception and replace others with God as the watcher.

 The Cause of Deception

What causes the deception that leads attention away from priorities? Qur’an suggests in bit by bit parts across various chapters that necessitates an understanding of two groups of humans: disbelievers and hypocrites. The former took the religion as amusement and game (6:70, 7:51) and were deluded by worldly life (6:70, 6:130, 7:51) and forgot about Judgment Day as they rejected Qur’an (7:51). The latter, however, vehemently claimed faith but preferred personal interests instead of the truth as they had nexus with both faith and disbelief. Satan was allowed, for their hypocrisy, to deceptively lure them away from priorities (57:14). Disbelievers ridiculed with God’s verses – Based on the worldly success [referred to as “movement in the cities” (40:4) by the disbelievers (3:196)] people thought the Day of judgment was a bluff hence they ridiculed the Book. The faith on the Book, which had come from God, would have highlighted enough for them the conclusiveness of the message that they were all accountable and would meet the Judgment Day. Hypocrites, never being convinced, wait for one to prevail over the other and run to the side that is an advantage. The respite given by God is wrongly judged by them as a success and Satan keeps deceiving them while they decide to take refuge in hypocrisy (Qur’an 57:14). Besides, their invention in their religion deceived the people who had the Scripture – the right path – in the past (3:24).

The lack of reliance on God leads the hypocrites to love the Self with imbalance as they intensely strive to hide their hatred towards it. In today’s society, humans are seen engaged in depicting an imaginary self trying to showcase the best saying to own selves “I am so cool and better”. Difficulty in accepting grief (test and trials of life) from the past makes them unfold their unrealistic and loveless self as they forcefully deter criticism by following the “look at me” campaign. Unhappy with the present, they hide their Self under an artificial showoff. On the other hand, excessive defensiveness of the Self spills out yet another crisis as some covertly accept grief from the past and start losing hope in the future. With the scheme to portray themselves as the victims – without the conviction to stand up against all odds – they play a blame game to find a scapegoat as they launch the “don’t look at me, look at them” campaign. Both these campaigns had already chosen to prioritize the watcher and that watcher was not God. Faith in God’s sole authority and wisdom may not get rid of the grief from the past and fear for the future; however, it makes the Self strong enough to navigate through those and tap into the Self to accept the present as it is. Consciously prioritizing God in the heart as a watcher would highlight the sincerity of the truthful people and make it strong against Satan’s instigation to let go of God from the heart. Interestingly Satan’s instigation is indicated to be out of reach of truly sincere Selves (Qur’an 15:40, 38:83).

God-Consciousness

What is it with the Self carries on that keeps God as watcher in all its pondering? This can be highlighted in what happened in the year around 610 just before Islam re-started its journey of monotheism through God’s first revelation to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Ruminating over the nature of justice vs injustice disturbed the Prophet (SAW) immensely as he used to go into seclusion in a cave at Mount Hera. The point of focus there was on finding an answer to why all the injustice wasn’t being overcome around him. Then came, one day, the first few Qur’anic verses from God through Angel Gabriel (A:). He (SAW) was not only trembled with panic-stricken awe but also overwhelmed by a huge realization that his feeling of ‘self-sufficient’ in curbing all the injustice around was lowering him to nothingness in front of the Supreme Being – the Lord of the Worlds. Starting from a simple piece of clotting blood a human becomes an adult and that much ability is attained not without God’s approval. Therefore, radically changing the world is possible not without the refusal to the arrogance of pretending to be self-sufficient – i.e., a human needs help from God. God’s message in that circumstance pointed out that “He taught man what he did not know” (Qur’an 96:5). He made knowledge accessible to humans so that they could find an answer, which they could not have managed themselves. The daunting awareness of an unavoidable force shatters the reality built up by human beings about their Selves and the world around them. Realizing this generates the awe and this awe is God-consciousness (Arabic: Taqwa), which was all along with the Prophet (SAW) in the next 23 years of his remaining life.

God-consciousness has been explained by many as spiritual carefulness. It’s been metaphorically elucidated with situations where one walking through a thorny path would take extra care so that the clothes do not get caught in the thorns. This extra care exemplifies ‘Taqwa’ in the Self, submitted to God sincerely. That Self keeps God in mind while being humble in happiness, staying steadfast during trials of hardship, standing up to say the truth even if it is difficult but doing it respectfully, maintaining modesty and chastity within own self, engaging in charity both openly and secretly with entire (not partial) consciousness to please God. Even in putting effort to remember God, one who submits to God is expected to hold on to God-consciousness to eschew any public parading intention.

Mind Camouflaged with Habit

Habit has a phenomenal effect on making it difficult for the Self in maintaining moral commitment. Putting values to something would let the Self prioritize that. However, when the values become subjective, i.e., there are more than one non-competing truths, the Self gets stuck at the bottleneck of its mindset. A sweet-loving diabetic patient, because of a deeper conflict concerning the values in the heart, does not restrict the urge to have sweets as something higher than survival motive takes the driving seat of the mind. Also, vulgar jokes-loving childhood friends decide to stick with the habit they have grown comfortable with – thereby stopping to change their inner core in meaningful ways even after they grow past the threshold of maturity. Prayers, too, become an automated habit as the Self can lose the intent and deliberation and become mindless. To remain cognizant of the deeper motivations the Self would need help from God. Each Self, with the faith and the God-fear from the heart, rightfully becomes eligible to be blessed with the blessings from heaven and earth (7:96). The God-consciousness heralds help from the Creator. The sense of reverential awe is gained through training with the effort during fasting in Ramadan (2:183) while God submitting humans aim to neutralize the pulling force of eating food in hunger and enhance self-restraint thereby. It means the purpose of Ramadan is to promote God-consciousness within the Self. Qur’an is endorsed by the Supreme Being, Who shows and guides to the right path, and He says it is the guidance for none other than the ones, who are conscious of Him (2:2).

The Choice to be Conscious of God

The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was addressed by God “You can only make those listen who profess belief in our revelations.” (Qur’an 27: 80-81). Therefore, first Self hears what the Qur’an says then it chooses to either comprehend on it or not. If it turns away (consent is made) then it gets tempted by Satan (47:25). On the other hand, God fearing people, who remembers God (choice is made) when Satan prompts, will have insight to see straight (7:201). Qur’an specifically pointed out that “God chooses whoever He pleases for Himself and guides towards Himself those who turn (choice is made) to Him” (42:13). It is quite intriguing that human consent does have a role to initiate God consciousness, which makes humans eligible to receive guidance from God. This espouses the fact that firstly the Self believes what is ordained from God (outward source) and secondly, it makes a choice to follow own sense of right and wrong driven via own emotional experience (inner source), then it needs the help from God and it becomes eligible to earn that help based on its choice.

A part of the Self finds how to manage the emotional landscape and sometimes thinks it knows what is best – it has the world figured out. It then progressively enforces what it believes based on its limited perspective on other humans. The root of this attitude is the panic of uncertainty. Deep down it knows it doesn’t know much and is horrified by it. In the world around we see parents often feel satisfied when children comply. However, the need for sound justification of why we do what we do sometimes loses attention and subsequently seems irrational to the kids and they start complying because they just want to avoid confrontation with parents. The choice, they would make in their adulthood later, may not be based on what they conformed to within their childhood. Had they been rationally justified with their moral identity their conformation would have been more of a transformation then. The choice, which is so profoundly vital in embracing God-consciousness, was not carefully let flow through those kids’ mental sphere. Their choice was selectively controlled based on what few parents felt comfortable with their relaxed confidence, which inhibited growth rather than supporting how to choose. The Self faces the challenge to sustain the urge to wrap itself mindfully – adults or adolescents – all humans are supposed to choose to stay mindful before expecting help from God. Just as clothing is an apt adornment to humans with which they decently present themselves on earth, likewise, this special awe is the best of all garments of Self-identity (7:26).

When human consent is driven not to attend to Satanic influences that choice lets the Self discover the urge to prioritize God among all the watchers and avoid being overrun by grief and fear. Because the worldly life baffled the disbelievers to mock at Qur’an; Satan’s instigation, caused by lack of trust in God, deceived the hypocrites – only the believers seem to be well equipped to prioritize God. The fundamental core of the attitude for the Self is not the belief, rather, it is the sincere submission to the will of God in every aspect of life. Thus God-consciousness is a choice that confirms and completes the belief showing the Self has submitted. The essence of existence hinted all over the Qur’an, is to live in a state of perpetual awareness of being God’s witness. Therefore, when the Self wants to add value on earth, this God-consciousness will make the difference between – whether it aspires to become like stars to be gazed upon or it strives to become a lamp without being responsible for others’ choice to take benefit from it or not.