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How To Reawaken Internal Guidance And The Innate Voice That Allah Sent Us With?
As it is stated in Quran that a human is sent with innate knowledge of one god and the sense of right and wrong. How can a person reawaken, listen and recognize this innate knowledge when this voice has stopped and/or overwhelmed by sensory feeds of this world (What the person has been hearing, learning, listening, watching and feeling). How to recognize this voice again if it is overtaken by the voices of devil and his companions, voices of other people selling other religions, voice of parents who are polytheist or believe in Shirk, etc.
I am seeking a deeper answer; a tried a true method that could reawaken this voice for anyone who wishes to hear it. Perhaps Ghamidi Sahib could answer this if he hasn’t already answered this yet.
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17 Replies
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How To Reawaken Internal Guidance And The Innate Voice That Allah Sent Us With?
updated 2 years, 8 months ago
4 Members
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17
Replies
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Read and follow the Holy Quran and climb the hill.
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Climb the hill?
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A very interesting and basic question indeed brother Nadeem. I personally do not believe we r sent with an innate guidance or idea of good or bad. There’s no good evidence from archeological, scientific or philosophical realms (my search is ongoing and also that’s a separate discussion)
As muslims the demands of a pious life are enormous and it’s not easy to navigate through life without distractions/sins etc. both, pain and pleasure, can make a person negligent.
I won’t talk about religion cuz u already know it more than I do
To me, constant reminder and strict routine are keys to stay on the right course. When we act piously in our lives, our lives do become lot peaceful. Keep reminding urself that doing good is hard now but make life easy in the long run makes it easy to do the right thing and avoid quick pleasures or an easy way out. Daily routine of reading Quran with understanding helps a lot. Expanding the horizon of our knowledge with history, philosophy helps a lot too. Basic human instincts and problems haven’t changed in last thousands of yrs, age old traditions like Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy has addressed the same questions and there answers also provide meaning and insights to us.
Lastly, reading biographies of prominent individuals also motivate and give practical reasons and guidance.
In short, everyday there’s a struggle to walk the right path. Pleasures of all sorts r available, haram money doesn’t make ur food taste bad or ur clothes to stink. Cheating ur colleagues or spouse or friends, they’ll not know. But one has to decide the true “reasons” why he/she wants to do good. Everyone’s reasons r different
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Thanks Brother Faraz for your detailed answer.
It just happens that I was thinking why are we preaching Islam before a person has even realized the innate voice of guidance.
Shouldn’t we tell Muslims and nonMuslims to first recognize the innate guidance if there exists such innate guidance. Once a person realizes that his innate voice is telling that there is only one and independent god, then we give him the details of Islam and a copy of Quran.
Why don’t we do it this way, instead of debates and arguments with each other?
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I don’t think there’s an innate guidance to believe in 1 God or any idea of good or bad. All we have is consciousness and yearning to find meaning. That yearning take people to different paths.
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Brother Faraz, Quran states that Allah has provided us the concept of one god and basic sense of right and wrong. As a believer I can’t reject that unless we misunderstood the meaning of those Ayahs. Logically speaking, I haven’t accepted or rejected the concept of innate guidance, but one thing for sure, when I was a nonbeliever, whenever I thought about god I always thought about one god by default. I am not sure if this is the same for everyone.
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Plz share the ayah, say Allah has provided concept of Tauheed innately?
If u r referring to 91:8, then the Surah starts by talking about creation of sun, earth, nafs and idea of good and bad given to humans. Immediately after if follows a story of perished nation who denied their rasool so that ayah is more related to revealed guidance and not innate
World Ilham is only used here in Quran. For divine inspiration for non-prophets, word Wahi is used (bee, Moses AS’s mother)
Main reason I don’t believe in innate fitrah is as above (lack of evidence from history/science) and mere fact that people who search for meaning don’t come to Islam all the time, they become Buddhist, Hindu, spiritualist etc. they find their meaning of life. So if there’s really a fitrah then it shouldn’t be satisfied by anything except tauheed but if it does then isn’t it good evidence to believe there’s no such thing as innate guidance but only a stimulus to look for meaning?
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Brother Faraz: I believe in science but science is not everything and it is not error free. Science hasn’t even ventured into our soul, life or creation. It is completely silent. Concept of Allah is much higher than science.
Regarding people who search for meaning may not come to Islam for many reasons. We do not know if they are satisfied with other religions. So I do not think that is a reliable judgement.
Anyhow, here are the Ayahs that directly or indirectly tell us that the concept of one God and the concept of right and wrong are built into us. Just think deeper and look into the indirect meaning. Some verses are quite obvious, such as 30:30.
7:172, 7:173, 30:30, 33:72, 36:60, 40:67, 45:22, 55:4, 76:2
[7:172] Recall that your Lord summoned all the descendants of Adam, and had them bear witness for themselves: “Am I not your Lord?” They all said, “Yes. We bear witness.” Thus, you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, “We were not aware of this.”
[7:173] Nor can you say, “It was our parents who practiced idolatry, and we simply followed in their footsteps. Will You punish us because of what others have innovated?”
[30:30] Therefore, you shall devote yourself to the religion of strict monotheism. Such is the natural instinct placed into the people by GOD. Such creation of GOD will never change. This is the perfect religion, but most people do not know.
[36:60] Did I not covenant with you, O Children of Adam, that you shall not worship the devil? That he is your most ardent enemy?
[40:67] He is the One who created you from dust, and subsequently from a tiny drop, then from a hanging embryo, then He brings you out as a child, then He lets you reach maturity, then you become old – some of you die earlier. You attain a predetermined age, that you may understand.
[45:22] GOD created the heavens and the earth for a specific purpose, in order to pay each soul for whatever it earned, without the least injustice.
[55:1] The Most Gracious.
[55:2] Teacher of the Quran.
[55:3] Creator of the human beings.
[55:4] He taught them how to distinguish.
[76:1] Is it not a fact that there was a time when the human being was nothing to be mentioned?
[76:2] We created the human from a liquid mixture, from two parents, in order to test him. Thus, we made him a hearer and a seer.
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Unless someone has knowingly and repeatedly suppressed their voice of conscience and completely killed it, it’s always there to guide us no matter how subtle its amplitude.
When we consciously understand our own selves and start to discipline our actions accordingly, we begin to strengthen our voice of conscience. In fact, the act of disciplining ourselves within the bounds defined by our nature (fitrah) and further explained by God through His prophets is in fact practicing taqwa.
The best way to achieve taqwa is by trying to remain aware of our own behavior. By default, a lot of our behavior is driven by our subconscious mind, however, consciously scrutinizing this behavior is what raises it to the level of awareness so that we can learn from it and make corrections where needed.
Ghamidi sahab suggests, and I second his opinion, that nightly self accountability is the best way to keep our behavior in check. When we judge our own behavior and ask ourselves ‘what made me act in a particular way’ it helps us to understand our own selves better, strengthens our voice of conscience, and with willingness to improve, helps us guide our future actions accordingly.
The following video is very helpful in understanding what hurdles we as humans face in achieving our desired selves:
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Faisal, the video sheds very little or no light on how to hear or feel the innate guidance that Aalah has sent us with.
I was expecting a method, such as praying to god of the universe and seeking his guidance at long hours at night or living in seclusion for a month, or extreme fasting, etc. How to clear our mind to hear the voice?
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I’m sorry that I did not echo your thoughts. I have only shared what I know works as well as Ghamidi sahab’s opinion in this matter.
The video is not to answer your question directly. As I stated above, it’s purpose was to understand the hurdles in listening to the voice of conscience so that we can take appropriate measures.
I think that you’re not very clear in your thoughts about what you’re looking for. The methods that you suggested above require one to be a believer, however, earlier you stated (below) otherwise.
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Thanks Faisal. My question is more related to NonMuslims and Muslims who call themselves Muslims because they are born into it.
How can they get in touch with their inner voice and recognize it before anyone comes in to invite them to Islam, answer their questiins and provide a copy of Quran to read.
Wouldn’t this be the first step where first we direct a person to get in touch with the inner voice before we even talk about Islam and expand on the concept of one god?
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I agree but I don’t think that I referenced Islam above. My response, including the video I shared above, is mostly generic for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
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Since there was no answer on…
How to teach someone a method to reawaken or listen to internal guidance of “One God” and get in touch with the innate voice or basic instinct to distinguish right from wrong, I will try to attempt to answer my own question after lot of deliberation.
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There is no such thing as a process, a method, a “Maraqba”, years of meditation in a cave, spinning for hours or turning into a Sadhu to get in touch with the internal voice/guidance that Allah gave us before he sent us in this world for this test.
A person just need to sit down and think with sincerity
1. GOD’S EXISTENCE: No one can deny god’s existence. Everyone believes in god, it is just that they call the god with different names, a force, randomness, nature, etc. We observe creation all around us as a proof of a creator.
2. ONE GOD: Having one god of the universe is the only mathematical and logical conclusion for someone if someone was born in a jungle without parents and never influenced by any other human.
-ZERO GOD: We established earlier that no one can say there is no god, because we see the creation all around us.-MULTIPLE GODS: No one can say there are multiple gods. Then the next question comes up, how many gods? If multiple gods, where did the person get this information. Is the source of information reliable? Is the information reliable? Did the information come from god? Since there will be no good answers to these questions, the only remaining answer will be that there is only one god.
3. INNATE KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT FROM WRONG: Our sense of physical and mental pain and suffering is the innate guide to tell us what is right and what is wrong. Everyone knows how pain feels and innately knows that giving someone pain is wrong. This comes from our childhood. If we follow holistically this instinct of not giving others physical or psychological pain is exactly the teachings of Islam’s.
Beyond this we also have an innate sense of justice or sense for the law of equivalence. If someone gives us pain, we expect that person to feel that pain too so he would stop. It will be unjust if someone gives us pain and continue to have fun. This brings the concept of “Jaza” and “Saza”
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If following the above innate knowledge a person goes out to search for god, an authentic message, a true god, a true religion, only Islam at this time seems to meet all the requirements of the innate guidance.————————————————————
So, if someone selects Islam and starts learning about Islam he/she may say…if Islam’s guidance is based on feeling of physical and psychological pains then why does, for example, Islam prohibits consensual sex?
For consensual sex, perhaps for the moment or in the near future, it may seems that it doesn’t hurt anyone.
But god knows better. In the long run not only those two, but many other person suffer psychologically. The prevalence of consensual sex promotes unfaithfulness, undesired and uncared children, prohibits formation of families and formation of strong bonds to give each other company or to take care of each other and much more.
Same logic goes for all other things that are prohibited in Islam that apparently don’t seem to cause any physical or psychological pain, but in the long run they do.
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You’re free to share your thoughts in a response, however please note that the answer was given on how to reawaken or strengthen the innate guidance / internal voice. The method that was suggested is self accountability. The “One God” portion was not apparent in the original question.
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Brother Faisal, I was hoping some more feedback and share of your valuable knowledge. Am I completely wrong, getting warmer or on the right track.
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No, it’s not about right or wrong at all. I just wanted to point out that I did in fact respond to your question. Of course, as I stated earlier, I can only share with you my own experience and Ghamidi sahab’s suggestion in this regard. If you had a different experience, or had to add something additional, you’re absolutely fine in doing so.
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