Ujb (vanity) or self-praise is a dangerous spiritual disease.
A person who has fallen into it can not come out.
To come out one first of all has to realize that one is in a hole.
If you are in a hole you can not think of praising your self.
If you praise your self then you'll never think that you are in hole.
If you do not acknowledge that you are in a whole then you'll never think of coming out of it.
And there is the rub.
A vain person is in a deep trouble.
And this is true even if he says that he is alright.
Even if he says that I am OK.
Everything is alright. (Sub kuchh theek thaak hai.)
Unless a person decides to have a ruthless look at his situation it is difficult to come out of vanity.
Or may be Allah (SWT) will pull him by his forelocks.
He (SWT) is Oft-Forgiving and Most Merciful.
A modern cause of vanity is this obsession with one's own intellect, facility to reason and any level, not necessarily high, of expertize in logical thinking.
This deviation catches on rather early. The adolescent (baligh) age itself-the age when a boy discovers that he is a man (or a girl discovers that she is a woman).
The young man takes up the task of reconstructing Islam.
Another factor is the modern education. After getting engineering, medical, management or even liberal arts degree people start thinking that they are all ready and fit to redefine Islam.
All overwhelmed by their own intelligence.
Hadhrat Ali (RA) said that if it was a matter of intellect then we would rub on the sole of the socks rather than on the top.
To conclude the one point programme for such people will be to ask whether they have submitted their intellect to Shariah or not.
A person who has fallen into it can not come out.
To come out one first of all has to realize that one is in a hole.
If you are in a hole you can not think of praising your self.
If you praise your self then you'll never think that you are in hole.
If you do not acknowledge that you are in a whole then you'll never think of coming out of it.
And there is the rub.
A vain person is in a deep trouble.
And this is true even if he says that he is alright.
Even if he says that I am OK.
Everything is alright. (Sub kuchh theek thaak hai.)
Unless a person decides to have a ruthless look at his situation it is difficult to come out of vanity.
Or may be Allah (SWT) will pull him by his forelocks.
He (SWT) is Oft-Forgiving and Most Merciful.
A modern cause of vanity is this obsession with one's own intellect, facility to reason and any level, not necessarily high, of expertize in logical thinking.
This deviation catches on rather early. The adolescent (baligh) age itself-the age when a boy discovers that he is a man (or a girl discovers that she is a woman).
The young man takes up the task of reconstructing Islam.
Another factor is the modern education. After getting engineering, medical, management or even liberal arts degree people start thinking that they are all ready and fit to redefine Islam.
All overwhelmed by their own intelligence.
Hadhrat Ali (RA) said that if it was a matter of intellect then we would rub on the sole of the socks rather than on the top.
To conclude the one point programme for such people will be to ask whether they have submitted their intellect to Shariah or not.
