An Important Reminder / Antidote to Our Self-Importance Delusion

As we run through this maze of life we often forget some simple but important matters. One such thing is the reminder about our self's non-importance. Sometime we become so blinded by our material and external achievements all of which are infinitely because God gave us, those configurations, those capacity, those opportunity, those special and unique arrangements made for us than any of our achievements, capability or deservingness. If we say we achieved this or we did that, truthfulness in that statement is infinitesimally small, in comparison to if we say God made this happen or God really did it through His incomparable configurations - that is far more close to truth.

This is also an explanation of the Scripture where God is addressing to His Messenger saying:

wa ma ramayta idh ramayta

And you threw not when you threw

walakinna Llaha

but (in reality) Allah Threw

~ The Qur'an 8:17

That is haqiqat, that is reality in real sense. When the Messenger threw something, those with external vision only can see only a human hand moving in air, but those with internal vision knows and can see the truth infinitely more closer to Truth that it is the Real Who alone is the true agency of any Movement, Transformation and Doing. That is 'la hawla wa la quwwata illa bi'Llah' - there is no power and transformation except by God.

When Jesus heals a blind or revive someone from dead state, it is the agency of the Real Who is in manifest play. When the staff of Moses part the Red Sea it is not the staff or Moses who is acting but the Real is again manifest in His Divine Action, which is the case always, forever and ever and in every moment.

But in our ordinary consciousness and specially in life in a godless society where higher consciousness and sense of sacredness is almost totally remove from our atmosphere we are increasingly trained to only stimulate and work with our external senses and as a result we are losing our touch with our inner vision, with our heart, our intuition and sense of sacredness. We continue to define our life with our salary, our social status and accumulated material stuff.

This creates a crisis within our self, both our external self and our internal self. The crisis that is cause by our falsely and continuously inflating our self-importance. In its extreme form it may turn subtly into narcissistic personality disorder which is caused by inflated sense of self-importance, self-fixation, an extreme preoccupation with one’s self. This is the greatest disaster for the spirit, for one's spirituality and any chance of attaining freedom from the slavery of the self.

So what is the antidote to our self-importance?

Antidote is in Remembering the Opposite

In this reality everything is created in opposite. Thus when we run into a situation, we must find its betterment in it's opposite. What is the opposite of self-importance? Lets try to think the symptoms of a person who is deluded by this attitude of self-importance. Lets try to observe what happens to a person who is so full of himself that he can't see beyond himself or herself. When a person is suffering from chronic self-importance, he seems to think of himself or herself as center of the world, right? Center of the cosmos even!

The opposite of this situation is to understand our insignificance in grand scale of things. In this elegant universe if we remind ourselves, the scale of our self, our achievement, our stuff, our plans, our bank balance in comparison to the grand scheme of things- even in the context of physical universe, perhaps that can be a starting point for it.

So lets remind ourselves our position in this physical universe as far as our eyes or our technology can see or detect. We hope that this may put us back into some kind of perspective which is not so full of self-importance, but leave us more humble, more thankful, more grateful and also bring us a consciousness of the grand.

Below are three short youtube videos which I recommend here for you to watch and ponder over as an antidote of our self-importance and a tool to remember our smallness. It is said that "if you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced. That’s why people with no sense of humour have an increased sense of self-importance." I hope that these two videos will also help bring back that self of humor when it comes to our delusion about our self-importance.

May Allah include us among those who are humble. meek and free from self-delusions. Ameen. Amen. So be it.

Finally a Reminder from the Final Revelation:

Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding.

Who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], "Our Lord, You did not create this aimlessly; exalted are You [above such a thing]; then protect us from the punishment of the Divine Wrath manifest as Fire.

Our Lord, indeed whoever You admit to the Fire - You have disgraced him, and for the wrongdoers there are no helpers.

Our Lord, indeed we have heard a caller calling to faith, [saying], 'Believe in your Lord,' and we have believed. Our Lord, so forgive us our sins and remove from us our misdeeds and cause us to die with the righteous.

Our Lord, and grant us what You promised us through Your messengers and do not disgrace us on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed, You do not fail in [Your] promise."

And their Lord responded to them, "Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another. So those who emigrated or were evicted from their homes or were harmed in My cause or fought or were killed - I will surely remove from them their misdeeds, and I will surely admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as reward from Allah , and Allah has with Him the best reward."

~ The Quran 3:190-195