Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Balancing Act

When one has bad habits one is in trouble.
One needs self correction in this situation.
This self correction does not come from self help books. One must go to a Shaikh.
There is even more difficult thing. That is balancing. To learn that, or even to identify situations whether it is the situation that requires balancing or self correction, one again has to go to Masha-ikh.
As a bonus for reading so far here is a saying from Hakim-ul-Ummat Hazrat Thanwi (RA) where a situation requiring balancing is identified.
I neither like pride nor have any affinity for such humility in which there is disgrace. I do not house (in this khanqāh) anyone who is haughty, nor does a displayer of false humility find any place here, nor such a person who adopts such humility in which another becomes acquainted of his being selfless. This is also one branch of pride.

Everything should be balanced, and an easy way to attain that is that one neither adorns a style which instills pride, nor forces humility upon oneself. Be free in your disposition and do as per ones natural habit. This manner will be devoid of both pride and false humility otherwise whichever side one inclines toward will yield that quality.*
  Malfuzāt Hakīmul Ummat Malfuz # 176 – vol. 8 pg. 179
*i.e if one inclines more towards pride then it will yield the quality of pride in him and he will transgress its bound and vice versa.
 Source: Q.A.F.I.L.A.