In fact, we can use some measures in order to assess how “good” we really are in this. Here, four important measures are described:
2. As Muslims, we know a lot about concepts like trusting in God, leaving things to Him, etc. One of the main points of all worship we do is to be good at these. How do we perform in practice when we come across an apparently worrying or stressful situation? Do our actions indicate that in reality, we do not really believe in someone up there who takes care of things for us, or do they indicate a true belief in a being looking after us? These situations are the best opportunities to look right inside our heart (our spirit), to get an idea of how far we have come in the path of tazkiyah and to diagnose weaknesses in our beliefs and actions, aiming to do our best to rectify them.
4. How much of our spiritual energy is spent on dealing with “anger”, “taking offence easily”, “worrying”, “jealousy”, “being suspicious of others”, “being pessimistic” and so on? Each of these is an indication of a defect in our soul and deserves special attention. The person who is in the path of tazkiyah has such a big heart, such clear thought and such passion to move on in this path that he will rarely become angry for a personal reason and will hardly become offended by a fellow human being. Likewise, he does not go to extremes in worrying about and over-analyzing his worldly affairs, for he appreciates the purpose of his life, he is aware of the fact that he is a servant of God and that everything happens under the control of the One who knows everything and is all Wise.
Each of the above mentioned spiritual defects could be significantly influential in damaging a person’s efforts in the path of tazkiyah. On the other hand, the degree to which a person has been successful in avoiding these spiritual defects is a fair indication of his or her success in tazkiyah. This of course does not mean that only these four measures are influential in our spiritual purification.
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