Purifying Our Heart

“By al-’Asr (the time). Verily, man is in loss”

(QS: Al-’Asr (103): 1-2)

In the concept of time management, we are familiar with time mapping and time division. From 24 hours day that we have, we can actually map our time of every hour, every minute and even every single second. Through the time mapping, we can know whether or not we have been already providing time to evaluate ourselves.

Every day, we are dealt with different kinds of people’s traits and personalities including our own disposition. When people scold or tell off us for being arrogant, our brain will respond to what arrogant is and what makes arrogant. Afterward, we make a self-dialogue: “Is it true that I am arrogant?” The process occurs because we have known he criteria of arrogance. Through the criteria, we know the meaning of arrogance and its effects. Then, we may think: “Yeah, I’am arrogant”, or “Hmmm, I don’t think I am”. The process of such thinking is called Tafakur. If we are arrogant, we will then think of ways to control our arrogance. If we don’t believe that we are arrogant, we need to make sure that what we have done is not a form of arrogance.

Let me give you an example. I used not to know why I had acne on my face. Because of my lack of understanding of how to treat acne, I peeled them off so often that I got more acne. SOmetimes, it even made an infection on my face. However, after knowing how to treat an acned face, I could care for my face. At last, I have an acne-free face.

Accordingly, the effort of self-understanding can grow into the effort of self-control. We can keep in purifying our heart if we understand the knowledge. We can evaluate ourselves from the characteristics we are aware of.

*Adapted from the book “ Jagalah Hati”, by Abdullah Gymnastiar. MQS Publishing Bandung 2004