Have you ever experienced a situation where you were going against something your heart knows is for you and so Allah granted you guidance through your intuition….. A guidance that resulted in contradictions of the mental narrative you were fleeing through?
This is the ego not co signing your hearts desire because it doesn’t trust it. It’s fleeing because the situation your soul is aligned with exposes it to discomforts it wishes to avoid.
The egos foundation is based on fear, it’s motive and life force is embedded in only one thing and that is survival.
A person brave enough to confront the internal conflict that arises as a result of Allah’s signs, that contradict the mental constraints of the ego they were engulfed in. Ends up in a valley where they know in their hearts, that their soul isnt co signing their fear based thoughts about matter for a reason.
And so through hope & faith they stop running and become still instead. Trusting in the point of que sera sera (what will be will be)
They recognise that in fleeing there is no inner peace and what is inner peace except the souls language of approval. The soul is always motivated in the direction of wholeness, of you being complete and so inner peace is its way of communicating that you are in alignment with that.
With that all said it must also be said, that this is just one side of the coin. The other side is what this post entry is really about.
What happens when through the egos will to survive one runs to a matter their soul isn’t aligned with?
The same internal conflict arises but in this case the intuition, the hunch is seen as a burden that threatens what is being pursued. The individual begins to compensate by becoming a servant to the external matter that plays a part in bringing the internal conflict into fruition. They cut themselves down to size. Sometimes even compromising their own dignity and directly affecting their wellbeing.
‘If I do this then this fear won’t occur’ ‘it’s just a crease in the affair that can be ironed out’
‘A complication, most things have them, I’ll be patient’
Shaytan infiltrates this person through the concept of benefit of the doubt, and through compromise. It dresses self bettayal like this because he relies on the exploitation of reason in persons mind.
Because to most these are good traits so why or how can it be a problem? It’s a problem because these traits are being summoned by the ego mind and not stemming from the individuals heart soul space.
This difference between the above examples where internal conflict exists is crucial.
When you flee from what your heart and soul co-sign simply because the external reality about matter scares the shit out of you. In ignoring the incongruence that comes from your chosen act of abandoning ship (fleeing), you betray yourself to serve your egos will to survive.
And When you stay despite your heart and soul not co signing matter you cling to, (and it isn’t co signed when your intuition goes against it) Then you remain to your own detriment.
This is self betrayal of the highest order. So self betrayal can occur in a matter whether you fled or stayed. The point is necessarily connected to the position you took, but more is determined by the influence behind it, because each situation is different.
If Listening to your intuition (heeding the signs Allah gives you directing you to a certain truth) is the policy. The procedure can at times be to stay and at times to flee and never look back. The procedure you adopt must be in alignment with the policy above…. if khayr and success is what’s hoped for.
Don’t ignore your hunches for true justice starts with being just with yourself.
Hunches/intuitions don’t come out from mid air for no reason. They are indicators assisting a truth that requires your attention.
When you are afraid to face it’s message and are quick to go in to a management position of your own feeling. Then you are erasing a part of you (that Hunch is a part of you)
Quite often, such hunches are dismissed because one can’t compartmentalise the hunch into a logical framework that helps them to decipher its meaning in the moment. To decipher in a way that supports their motive to continue the pursuit of external matter in question.
If the feeling can not be qualified by a fact then it’s easy to dismiss it. Especially more, when said feeling is going against a matter they wish to acquire, achieve or to manifest. Much to the approval of their ego that has ‘okayed’ this goal because it’s working in tandem to what it legislated as part of its comfort zone.
In cases like this the intuition (guidance from Allah in matter) is registered as a disturbance, it makes the person feel imbalanced and challenged about what it is that they want. What it is that they pursue. What their ego calls to is more comforting and so they make the choice to follow it. By the time the illusion is revealed it is often to late. This is the meaning in the ayah…
“Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah ? Then will you not be reminded?” (Quran 45:23)
“Taken as his god his own desire” why does the Quran say this? Because through consideration of intuition (that came as divine guidance to direct to what’s in cohesion to persons highest good) the ego is sent into melt down because of the discomfort it perceives and so all of the individuals chosen actions, from that moment onwards, become infiltrated by the egos will to survive. The hunch is suppressed and the person continues on their chosen path.
These examples are the psychology behind doubts that are faced with courage and red flags that are ignored. The thin line that exists between the two, can only be fathomed from a heart & soul space.
Allah never abandons an individual, they are prone to abandon themselves through fear in both kinds of situations. They are always divinely assisted. And a sign of divine assistance is when the heart is not aligned to the matter thats pursued because through soul leaks, intuition is communicating and directing to something.
Allah guides through intuition, what many relate to as a “Hunch”
And it’s in these moments where we are meant to pause and reflect on why something is a amiss, why there is a mis alignment. Those true to themselves do, because the duality in them collapses due to the internal conflict that arose within.
As for those who suppressed the internal conflict through justifications that led to compensating their way through matter…
There are two verses in surah al ‘araf (Quran chapter the heights) that addresses their circumstance best.
“…And recite (O Muhammad pbuh) to them the story of him to whom we gave Our Ayaat (proofs, evidences and signs) but he threw them away, so Shaitaan followed him up, and he became of those who went astray.”
“And had We willed, We would surely have elevated him therewith but he clung to the earth and followed his own vain desire. So his description is the description of a dog: if you drive him away, he lolls his tongue out, or if you leave him alone, he (still) lolls his tongue out.
( Al-Acraaf 7:175-6)
Self betrayal begins when the signs of Allah about a matter are seen as burdens (and not a friend in deed) thus is acted against. “Thrown away”
It’s Seen as a burden because it threatens the egos version of stability. The above verses in surah “al ‘araf” are about those who fail to act on a truth revealed to them by Allah.
With the Quran being timeless in meaning, i think there is a synchronicity about these verses being in a chapter called the heights.
Background tafsir about this chapter highlights that al araf is a hill like mountain where the people stood on it, are suspended between the two worlds of paradise and hell. The synchronicity in relation to topic is in the profound truth that when the type of internal conflicts explained in this article arise, the individual is suspended between following their soul or ego.
A tug of war where truth is concerned will always have ego versus soul at either end of it.
“..so Shaitaan followed him up, and he became of those who went astray.”
Upon turning away shaytan follows the person up through his ego fears and cements his chosen path for him by highlighting the fears that made him turn away in the first place. As previously stated the soul is motivated in the direction of wholeness. So shaytan following up is to ensure that this person doesn’t eventually turn back.
He reminds them of the ego fears that made him originally cling heavily to the earth (to chosen path) irrespective of the fact that they didn’t have inner peace about matter.
This person goes astray because he ran from the truth under the clutches of the ego that had a will to survive. and the sad part is if the individual was true to themselves Allah would have facilitated a path that honoured them.
“And had We willed, We would surely have elevated him therewith but he clung to the earth and followed his own vain desire”
Operating through the egos dictation leaves no space for one to be receptive to the help of Allah.
The soul leaves this space because it recognises Allah. The ego is formed through wounds and only recognises what it registers as protecting you from experiencing said wound. It runs the show that is ones life based on this blueprint of survival.
The ego is not something that can be amputated out, it is also a part of us that shouldn’t be vilified for its ways but rather made concious so it can be integrated back to its destined position, which is to assist the soul, not run ones life in its place.
The only expert on the ship is the human soul the part of us that is eternal and will never die. But most importantly the part of us motivated through wholeness, through truth.
When Allah gives us signs and shows us proofs of a matter we are meant to take heed, not cling heavily to the earth through ego based desires. The reward for those who take heed is elevation.
“his description is the description of a dog: if you drive him away, he lolls his tongue out, or if you leave him alone, he (still) lolls his tongue out”
And The consequence for those who don’t is humiliation. Individual is left at the mercy of the external reality that doesn’t take their wellbeing into consideration.
So whatever is done to them they remain shackled until they see and opt for a way out this time heeding the signs of Allah that came for them not against them.
And the promise of Allah has shown consistent truth for men and women of understanding, who prone to reflect and connect the dots looking back.
May he protect us from following our fear based ego desires. Allah has given us free will to choose. And our will carries with it an ability to manifest an entire reality.
Synergetically Yours 