31. Don't is More Important than Do
Many of us are often not bad in doing recommended acts of worship. However when it comes to NOT doing sinful or disliked acts not many of us show much strength.
It is important to understand and appreciate the priorities when it comes to spiritual purification.
Which one is more important:
- To read lengthy Tahajjud prayers every night
- To avoid a sinful act
I think any one with basic knowledge of religion agrees that the latter is more important. This of course does not mean that till the time we commit a sin we should not read Tahajjud prayers. What this really means is that sometimes Satan deceives us by engaging our mind with the thought of good things that we can do or we are doing and in this way making us totally neglectful of the bad things that we are involved with and the fact that we need to avoid them.
As a traveler in the path of purification, if we have one eye on the good things that we can do, we need to have both eyes on the bad things that we need to avoid.
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It is important to understand and appreciate the priorities when it comes to spiritual purification.
Which one is more important:
- To read lengthy Tahajjud prayers every night
- To avoid a sinful act
I think any one with basic knowledge of religion agrees that the latter is more important. This of course does not mean that till the time we commit a sin we should not read Tahajjud prayers. What this really means is that sometimes Satan deceives us by engaging our mind with the thought of good things that we can do or we are doing and in this way making us totally neglectful of the bad things that we are involved with and the fact that we need to avoid them.
As a traveler in the path of purification, if we have one eye on the good things that we can do, we need to have both eyes on the bad things that we need to avoid.
(click for the next Tazkiyah point)
(back to the Tazkiyah points)
