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We move outside of our egos by intentionally caring for others more, offering a kind word, exercising patience, or spending time with people we care about. These things are risks to our ego because they can raise doubts or fears.
GOD wants us to kill our ego and live in the present.
[24:55] GOD promises those among you who believe and lead a righteous life, that He will make them sovereigns on earth, as He did for those before them, and will establish for them the religion He has chosen for them, and will substitute peace and security for them in place of fear. All this because they worship Me alone; they never set up any idols beside Me. Those who disbelieve after this are the truly wicked.
GOD is inviting us to turn over our life and every moment and action to HIM to ask Him to guide it.
[6:43] If only they implored when our test afflicted them! Instead, their hearts were hardened, and the devil adorned their works in their eyes.
Look at what Satan used in our great fall.[7:20] The devil whispered to them, in order to reveal their bodies, which were invisible to them. He said, “Your Lord did not forbid you from this tree, except to prevent you from becoming angels, and from attaining eternal existence.” He is tempting us with our two top ego items: I am better, and I need to be remembered forever.
But GOD is a better god than the ego.
The twelve steps for alcoholics anonymous has insightful lessons here. Since we sometimes call ourselves members of “idol worshippers anonymous” we can use lots of these lessons. A key one is the concept of my life has become unmanageable. I know for me I turned my life over to books, tv, parents, friends and my ego. But I was unhappy. I had the things that I was supposed to want but I felt empty. It was like the example in Matthew 16:26 “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” It was at this point that I started being more sincere about what makes a person happy—the soul and GOD. I eventually got to the Quran and started turning things over to GOD to decide.
Your ego’s job is to feel important. Its survival depends on it. Unfortunately, this translates to your ego needing to fight and defend itself. It seems counterintuitive, but the ego needs negative situations to arise so it can have something to do, something to worry about, or something to change. So if you’re happy, and everything is perfect, your ego will already be looking for an issue to cling to or a drama to create. The ego does not live in the present. Your ego wants you to be thinking about the past and future. This means thinking about things that have gone wrong in the past, or things that may go wrong in the future. As a rule, every single time you take something personally, this is the work of your ego. https://ihasco.co.uk
[45:23] Have you noted the one whose god is his ego? Consequently, GOD sends him astray, despite his knowledge, seals his hearing and his mind, and places a veil on his eyes. Who then can guide him, after such a decision by GOD? Would you not take heed?
Your ego limits your access to the Most Gracious and keeps you stuck in what your mind has experienced. It misses out on GOD’s inspiration. GOD’s inspiration can come in prayer or meditation. We can find it in things like love, awe, charity, appreciation and steadfastness.
When you carry your ego, you are weighted down. [4:28] GOD wishes to lighten your burden, for the human being is created weak.
Your ego is a set of thoughts that define your universe. It can become a prison. [5:30] His ego provoked him into killing his brother. He killed him, and ended up with the losers
When we worship the ego as our god we have given ourselves to a god that does nothing but take. We give him worship, devotion, and slavish obedience, and he graciously rewards us by draining the life out of us. This is why we are unhappy, because we are bowing down to a god who does nothing but demand and take.
Perhaps the first thing we can do is squarely face our worship of the ego and feel our natural distaste and even revulsion over it. Imagine yourself physically bowing down before your ego, prostrating to it as lord and master. It will make you feel sick.
We need to let go of “my” will and substitute the will of God, as in, “Thy will be done.” We must say “I submit to what GOD is doing. I believe wholeheartedly in what GOD is doing.”
[2:112] Indeed, those who submit themselves absolutely to GOD alone, while leading a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord; they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.
[2:131] When his Lord said to him, “Submit,” he said, “I submit to the Lord of the universe.”
[12:101] …. Initiator of the heavens and the earth; You are my Lord and Master in this life and in the Hereafter. Let me die as a submitter, and count me with the righteous.”
[30:31] You shall submit to Him, reverence Him, observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), and―whatever you do―do not ever fall into idol worship.
[41:33] Who can utter better words than one who invites to GOD, works righteousness, and says, “I am one of the submitters”?
Reference:
https://godinallthings.com/ 2021/05/24/the-ego/