“(by) the self and what proportioned it and inspired it with depravity or piety. He who purifies it has succeeded, he who covers it up has failed.” (Quran 91:7-10)
Self mastery is the path that leads to purification from ego (false self) influence. A path that leads to fulfilment (which is the real success) because through it you self actualise and live comfortably from a soul space that accommodates your natural disposition, your flow and harmony.
Self mastery assists purification because it’s a path that directs you to get to know and confront, then integrate back with love and understanding, the instrinsic dark parts of your nature. Your nature that you subconsciously separated from and disowned so that life can be comfortable for others. The purification occurs, when you learn to get out of your own way & you can only get out of it when you see how you are in it, in the first place. I am not team no negativity, I am…why does this negativity exist? (Ego influence, blind spots etc) I care to know because I care to grow, to mature and ultimately understand myself.
For me piety in the above verse connects to what inspires me towards living through my soul space. Without being conscious of Allah when what feels like dark feelings arise, I wouldn’t receive guidance through his grace that illuminates things in ways I could receive, explore and discover. Instead I would be engulfed with emotions that seem coated with shame or guilt. The ego uses these feelings to deface your soul, it block its emergence because it spells its annihilation. It co opts the feelings to re assert itself and inadvertently with success of having done so, you yourself insist on the realities that your inner being/soul remains trapped in. A world concocted for your false self.
When these emotions of shame and guilt are covered up via resistance and not felt all the way through, through commitment to self, you don’t get to receive the guidance they carried. The messages they arised to share, and so it will come again another day, event, person, situation paving way for the lesson to be received.
You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. ~Leonardo da Vinci
(Example) Imagine shackling your firmness because society deemed it unacceptable and showered instead praise on your empathetic nature.
What if you are both? Empathetic and firm
To establish justice for your soul you must first trust it. Self trust is what fuels you to push through despite any turmoil you experience or resistance you face when you show up as all of YOU.
One of the greatest things I could discover is the level of equanimity that comes with the provision guarded by my soul. Ive seen leaks of it in the past sure, in fact perhaps enough to not so long ago contemplate about it.
Why is the level of my equanimity a great thing for me to discover?
Because although I knew I had it through soul leaks what I’ve discovered now is the self trust block that kept me at bay from accessing it fully. I didn’t know there were levels to this ish within me.
When something isn’t accessed fully, then you’ve only been made privy to certain levels of it.
I don’t believe we can ever establish justice for our soul, at the most it’s a journey of self love we embark on with the intention to. At the least its an intention that stagnates and doesn’t come into fruition because we didnt do the work required to self actualise.
Committing to mastering the self is therefore put simply committing to establishing justice for your soul.
Its about committing to not just over coming a fear by going through it or simply transmuting things you feel/experience. But rather getting to know that part of you that met that fear and that part of you that felt what’s in your highest good so chose to transcend the past and transmute the fears into love. It’s about merging these parts that are your inner child and the adult you.
Trying to over come or rushing to transmute is to take a short cut based on established collective understanding of what’s good for you. Or simply just what’s good.
It separates you from self trust because your personal way understood by your soul, is contradicted by a well trodden path that’s vouched for. By societal frameworks concocted through values and principles you didn’t even get to have any input on.
Aligning with self trust would therefore often pit you against what’s conventional. Although that has never been an issue for me (I always felt pride in being unconventional in my own way especially when reflected back to me by my mirror soul) what’s important to know is, total alignment with self trust requires immense patience and courage.
Patience to accept what is, to trust yourself to stand in your truth even if it threatens your false self created by ego and how it’s percieved by the world that welcomes it. Courage to pause when you witness the threat trying to hijack the space where you intended to show up with your truth. Courage that uses the pause to reflect and proceeds to face the fear head on.
If you confront what agonises or attempts to intimidate then you are courageous.
Patience and courage thus are key players in maintaining self trust which maintaining your sense of self. Without them you wouldn’t trust yourself to walk with hope or faith cultivated in you by Allah. In order to provide his help and mercy for you on this path. Faith in trusting things unfold according to divine will is paramount. Through divine will you are never erased but on the contrary considered and protected.
One of the biggest reasons people struggle with self trust, is due to second guessing themselves in case they get or do something or someone wrong.
This is a struggle because often people who care for the above were denied the experience of normalcy in making a mistake.
Self mastery is the result of an evolution, that takes one from navigating through the clutches of ego to reaching a place of living directed by ones soul.
A place that requires a shift in the care that results through lack of self trust. To care that is now aligned with self trust.
This is a major pillar of ones soul structure, the shift of care now aligned with self trust means you navigate through unconditional self love.
You unconditionally maintain love for yourself even if a decision you made turned out to be wrong or worse ended up doing another wrong.
I think it was my separation from that, that had me attract into my life people that would reflect this very issue back to me.
Some of the greatest lessons we learn, bear the greatest rewards not just because the pain behind it might have been great. But because of the blessing sealed in the reward.
The gift of self trust is worth turmoil. There is also something poetic about getting it back through the same thing that “took” it.
Self mastery is the key that opens a gate Allah provided as grace. For all those committed to knowing their true essence come what may. It is a gate that upon opening not only leads to your natural disposition, but it ensures you know what you have accessed contains your full potential.
Self mastery is therefore not only necessary, but thee path itself, if self actualisation is the goal. Only through the path of self mastery can you find, recognise and be able to use your potential in ways that fulfil you and others. That is what it means to have self actualised.
You live and manifest in peace through self mastery. The world begins to reflect back to you what assists your wholeness not what confirms the egos narrative. Because you no longer tread paths that deter you from love of self but rather walk paths that align with self love. So even if in some situations the world reflects back to you some form of ignorance.
It’s Qalaa salama!
This world isn’t free from ignorance after all, that’s only in paradise. So Allah will always check one set of people by means of another. It’s how he maintains vibrational balance in this world.
Mastering yourself doesn’t mean you manage to get to categorically avoid BS. It just means you do not become entangled with or engulfed by its effect.
Through thorough familiarity with your mental and emotional strengths. You acquire discipline that conquers your nafs.
“Self-mastery is the challenge of transforming yourself from own worst enemy into your greatest ally.” ~ Wes Fesler
When you are your greatest ally you make decisions stamped through self trust that support what’s in your highest good. You journey towards fulfilment by acknowledging your truths.
When the energies in a present moment are really intense, in connecting the dots as you look back you will understand why.
Intense energies are paving way for immense blessings. Trust your soul that trusts the process, not the ego that feels victimised by it.
Synergetically Yours 