The drive a Self feels doing a charity defines its sincerity, only if it is neither acting according to a force of a rule, a threat, nor responding to the lure of some promises or feeling pity about the poor. Paradox as it may seem, the Self feels deeply sincere when it finds it frustrating or embarrassing that it has possessed something, but it is not giving that away – then comes the charity without boasting.

Taking up the Book named Qur’an gives a lot of glimpses on the Self, which can find meanings to phenomena that apparently would seem meaningless otherwise. It is quite a gripping fact that the understanding of the Book is conditional to the faith in the concept of Hereafter (Qur’an 17:45). The Hereafter gets in the scenario when the Self gets absorbed into contemplating the outside world. Qur’an continues to signify- rain from the sky is not enough to grow plants – earth takes part in fulfilling the purpose there; the sun and the moon do not collide with each other causing day and night for us to look for sustenance and take rest, etc. Self then can embrace the fact that opposing forces, each with its weakness, eventually benefit humans collectively. Likewise, all the injustice and shortcomings (rich vs. poor, strong vs. weak) in life on earth are hinted to have justice in the other life in Hereafter, again, if it’s in harmony (like for like – no injustice). Yet again, Qur’an stresses that Self being able to relate these to the outside world is conditional as the interpretation of signs in life is only meaningful to the thankful ones (7:58). This sense of thankfulness is inherent in Self since its birth – the natural disposition to decency and being grateful is innate. This natural disposition is termed as the true religion (30:30). But there is a bottleneck – my Self has a choice to make a call – either to be grateful with what it already has or to keep feeling deprived of what it doesn’t and, in the end, start believing it deserves those gifts anyway! That boasting in charity mentioned above is, then, inevitable – as not being grateful to God, the Self would continue pursuing things other than God. All the signs will become invisible to its eyes, and all the wrong ones will seem beautiful (7:146) for being arrogant (for making the undeserved call).

When I zoom into my Self, it yearns to write at the back of all its untold stories of life that it hasn’t won the battle yet. But it is well equipped with the intuition to figure out it is conceived with a vast explosion of emotions and enough righteousness to channel it right (Qur’an 91:8). Then it realizes – winning is immaterial – so it wants to rewrite in deep, bold letters that it hasn’t lost the choice to make the right call. Every time I make a call to find my Self in peace – for that moment in time – that is my most significant contribution to the world I walk on. Be it removing pebbles from the walkway or focusing on how I react to a conspiracy theorist’s findings of inconsistencies in the standard world we know – a mindful annoyance keeps my Self uncomfortable with anything absurd.

Why Self

Knowing the Self encapsulates the strength to regroup the sense of right and wrong to feed the emotions more than the ever-fluctuating mood I am captivated in usually. The world around me stays uncertain, and as it unfolds the chaotic challenges, I often tend to become afraid and reluctant to use the sense I am already given. However, that is when I don’t have to deal with anything other than searching for the balance – so that my emotions do not shift away from the sense of right and wrong. Not knowing Self will scare me about what I am not and let me become aggressive towards the one who is not similar. Not knowing Self would keep me blindly pursuing the line of aspirations staying away from what I am meant to thrive on. Success is attributed, in the Qur’an, to the ‘human striving against’ or ‘refusal to give in to the temptations to bury the sense of right and wrong – this effort is caused by purifying Self, the Self that will prosper (87:14, 91:9). Since the Qur’an necessitates the faith in the Hereafter, this prosperity connotes success in attaining the perennial life at the Garden of Eden, where rivers flow underneath (20:76). In its pursuit of happiness within the busy worldly affairs, the Self hardly experiences it as it almost always discovers itself amid wants for more. That Garden is supposed to make it feel not to leave ever as it will find what is enough for all its wants there.

Attitude to Purify Self

Self, when is given a vision for something in the Qur’an that it can strive for, embraces the need to learn a little deeper about the attitude to manage itself in a way that adds meaning to its worldly life. This sense of feeling accountable one day – makes the Self more introspective than before and focuses on the priorities (fearing God without seeing Him, keeping up the prayers) that matter to nothing other than its return to God on that Day (35:18). Another attitude the Self would need – before even thinking it can take care of purifying itself – is accepting that the purifying job is not possible without the grace and mercy of God. Choosing not to follow Satanic direction to immorality and evil deeds would materialize that (24:21). Furthermore, it will flourish in its quest to purify itself as it accepts that it is bound to succumb to the constant calls of impulses. Therefore, keeping the effort up to be eligible to find completeness is the way to go before life inexplicably brings it back to the never-ending worldly struggle between fear and hope. That is why keeping God in consciousness is vital because being wrong in action and speech, apart from grave sins and immoralities, is possible, but God knows who is conscious of Him. Contrastingly, for the same God-consciousness, it is futile to start feeling self-righteousness (53:32). Because God will decide when its quest is over, and the effort will be missing or rather useless if it keeps thinking it is doing a fabulous job (18:104). Provided that the Self shoulders an attitude to refuse the arrogance of pretending to be self-sufficient and progressively resolve the habit of being adjusted with remaining ignorant even after knowing what the truth is – channeling emotions would be manageable, upholding the sense of right and wrong.

How to Purify Self

On several occasions, the Qur’an indicates that reciting the Book and learning the wisdom from it connects purifying the Self (2:129, 2:151, 3:164, 62:2). Comprehending the verses is expected to guide the Self to get equipped with the discerning ability to deal with reality. That reality may be already tempting to evolve the Self to indulge in less human qualities – so that it can still decide to hold on to the right of being human. Giving away wealth is also mentioned in the Qur’an, saying it is connected to purifying Self (92:18, 9:102-103) – it involves the confession to its wrongdoings as it cannot fathom the impact of how much it has wronged itself. As a result, it is advised to keep spending a part of what it already has possessed, not with any public parading intention but with the hope that God would accept its true intention, in attempting to cleanse its imperfections. Furthermore, Qur’an (80:3-4) suggests that the avidity to inner purification of the Self deserves guidance; and the Self, who would fervently seek to be in touch with a beneficial reminder in general, would also be worthy of attaining the attention to purify itself. This attitude espouses a pearl of vital wisdom in reality: regardless of how insignificant the beginning can be, all the selves matter through what they become. Even if the parents, friends, or the surroundings are not very encouraging to know the Self – there is always time given to look and figure out what good and strength are gifted to every individual Self. This ardor will not let the Self be contented with merely living life – it will instead let it thrive with keenness in life. Even if a job is not enjoyable, it can still use that as an enabler to pursue meaning as one traverses other areas of life.

Keeping God in Grateful Heart

It appears that a human reflects on the world outside and gets closer to the truth. Qur’an suggests that to reach the fact ultimately one needs to be honest about the world inside of it too (41:53): “We will show them Our signs upon the horizons and in themselves until it is clear to them this is the truth.” There is always a tone of ‘each being insufficient without the other,’ which brings in the concept of ‘harmony.’ That seems to be the sine qua non of comprehensively perceiving the sentient nature of the Self. Believing God as the Supreme authority to let the Self purify is the faith, which is one part of the equation. Keeping God in mind and then burying emotions with what is right will result in excess on Self. The attitude with faith is the means to the ends – it is essential, and it gets completed while the Self indulges into the deeds with another attitude. That attitude gets shaped up by neither the fear of hellfire nor the promise of heavenly bliss. The attitude to feel obliged to command good and forbid evil on earth is felt when the Self switches arrogance to abundant gratefulness as it looks at itself and figures out help is already given while it engages with the treasure of existence coming out of nothingness.

Reverential awe (keeping God in consciousness) [Also Read] accompanied by gratitude to God (empowering itself to comprehend the signs around) [Also Read] harmoniously justifies certain attitudes within the Self. Those would aid the Self to control, but not renunciate, emotions to encourage righteousness – thereby repel the evil without hating the Self, engrossed in corruption. Those attitudes are poised to bring the Self an inevitable triumph.