Should We Be Watchful Over Our Own Defects?

 

When God wills a people well, He makes them watchful of their defects.1

Also, the Wise Qur’an narrates the Prophet Joseph to have said:

I claim not that my soul is always innocent; surely the soul of man incites to evil. (12:53)

One who is self-conceited and self-confident is unfortunate, while the one who sees his defects is fortunate. That being so, you are among the fortunate. But it sometimes happens that, though the evil-commanding soul is refined and transformed into the ‘self-accusing soul’ or even ‘the soul at rest’, it moves its line of attack to the nerves so that man cannot be free of anger and irritation until his death. There have lived many pure and saintly people who, though their souls were at rest, complained of the temptations of their selfhood and wailed over spiritual ailments, although their hearts were quite illuminated and pure. What they actually complained of is not having an evil-commanding self, but the transference of those evil commands to the nerves: the spiritual ailments which they bewailed were only imaginary.

I hope, my dear brother, that it is not your evil-commanding self or spiritual diseases which afflict you, but that you are suffering, rather, from nerves, so that you may go on struggling in order to go on making spiritual progress.

1. Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa’, 1:81.

 

This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.