ABOUT THE QURAN

What is purification of the soul? It is to purify one’s mind of all kinds of bias and negativity. In other words, it is to de-condition the wrong conditioning. This is the mind the Quran tries to build. One who fails in this de-conditioning process will become a corrupt or an unwanted personality in the divine scheme of things. Man’s personality is like an onion. An onion has a central core, but this core is covered by many layers. If you want to reach the core, you have to remove all these covers or layers. The same is true of the human being. A human personality is always subject to the process of conditioning, which wraps it up in many layers. The process of conditioning begins right from birth. Initially, it is an unconscious process. The individual’s family, his institutions, his society, and his community; all are sources of this conditioning. From childhood up to adolescence, he is affected by this conditioning. Only after reaching adulthood does he become able to understand this problem consciously. From here onwards begins what is called personality development. It calls for an awakening of the mind and a conscious discovery of this problem. At this stage, the individual must develop the capacity for anti-self thinking. He must engage in introspection. He must try to decondition his previous conditioning with complete objectivity. This is the most important task for every person. What is de-conditioning? It is a process of sorting out the items you have stored in your mind, all of which you must view with complete objectivity, so that you overhaul your personality in a dispassionate manner. You have to remove the negative thoughts from your mind, if you are to turn your negativity into positivity. A man asked the Prophet of Islam a question—a very comprehensive one. He said, “O Prophet, give me a master piece of advice by which I may be able to manage all the affairs of my life”. The Prophet replied: “Don’t be angry”. (Sahih Bukhari) The above teaching is a call to purify oneself from reaction. One should not allow anger to become a part of one’s personality. It is only in this way that one can truly develop one's personality. Simple living and high thinking are complementary to each other. Simple living saves one from all kinds of distractions and high thinking saves one from being the victim of negative experiences.