 Save 10% with my code Bobby10 on raw, organic, grass-fed and grass-finished, freeze-dried organ meats from grassland nutrition. Link in the description box. All right guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby. Guys, today we're gonna revisit one of my favorite topics, the ego. We're gonna watch how to counter your ego with Sheikh Hamza Yousef yet again. I talk to people offline and as with anything, people are divided. Some say that Sheikh Hamza Yousef is the man, he's an absolutely beautiful representative for Islam. Others say that he's a kafir and not a trustable source at all. To me personally, what I have heard from him was beautiful, was impressive and aligned with what I understood from the Quran. With no further ado, let's have a look. You have four enemies in this life and only four, nafs, shaitan, hawah and dunya. All the other enemies, if Allah sends them to you, it's a tribulation but your real enemies are these four. And if you can conquer these four enemies, all the other enemies are very insignificant. But the nafs is the number one. I learned this from you guys in the comment section. So thank you very much. You said that the ego is nafs in Arabic. That's Hibayna Jambayk. The Prophet said, the most vicious enemy that you have, the most harmful enemy that you have, the most aggressive enemy that you have is your own ego between your two sides. And we all have them. We're born with children, children have wonderful, beautiful side, but then they've got that horrible child that's selfish, but it's mine. You know, when they grab a toy, it's mine. So this is something that, as you grow older... I can relate to that as a father. Hopefully you learned to overcome that, but there are many people that behave like infants throughout their whole lives. This is actually something very, very interesting that I observed in Thai culture. In Thailand, people say that culturally, those childish behaviors like being envious, being grumpy, this is something that you will have to let go of as an adult. This is mine. This egocentric behavior is seen as something childish within the country. And this is why Thailand is called the land of thousand smiles, but it's not artificial. It's not fake. The Thai people truly see this as something childish and therefore just leave it in the past. Leave it for the children as grown-ups they see it as their responsibility to be happy, smiling adults. Absolutely beautiful. One of the most important things that we can do is to remember Allah, to work on ourselves. We have to work on ourselves. I mean, we all struggle. I struggle with myself. We have to work on ourselves. We can always do better. I was today, just today, I was in a, you know, I had a meeting with some people that came. They were nice people, you know, and I was, I just really, because I was really busy with something else and I had some problems, I just, I didn't, I felt like, you know, I really wasn't, I was rude basically to somebody and I immediately, like, after the meeting, I went up to her and I just said, I want you to please, I apologize. You know, I don't think I listened to you attentively. And that was my mistake. And I think being able just to admit that you're wrong about things is really important, not being defensive. The ego always defends itself. The ego defends itself because every loss for the ego is a death. This is what the ego is truly about. If you cannot admit your faults, your shortcomings, you keep your ego alive. But every single time you can objectively reflect and look at your ego and do not identify with your ego, you essentially start understanding that you are not your ego. And like this, you can actually know your enemy, know thyself, so you know God. Most extraordinary scholars, Ibrahim al-Laqani, amazing man. If you study his life, you're just marvel. He actually wrote the Johara in one night. And when he finished it, he went to his sheikh and he gave it to him. And his sheikh knew what it meant, like he had had an opening because it's a stunning poem, 144 lines of just crisp creed. And he took an oath with him. He said, from this day forward, I never want you to defend yourself. And that's a powerful practice of just not defending yourself. We have an amazing story of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, when a man was really abusing him in front of the prophets that I sent him. And the prophet was there listening and smiling. And then Abu Bakr just couldn't take it anymore. So now his nafs came in. And even Abu Bakr had nafs. I mean, it's the purest of all. Of course. Our prophet's life sent him in his ummah. This is what it means to be human. Every human will have an ego. This is the battle that we have within ourselves. As far as I know, this is the internal jihad. He didn't take it anymore. He started defending himself. The prophet left. When he saw him later, he asked him why he left. He said, that man was, it wasn't true what he was saying. He said, I saw the angels defending you. And right when you began to defend yourself, Shaitaan came into the room and I don't sit with Shaitaan. I mean, that is just such a stunning testimony to the power of fighting the ego. Sure. So what I would suggest first and foremost is that you begin to do a type of muhassabah. And we actually, Imam Zaynay worked on something together. What is muhassabah? Called the Agenda for Changing Our Condition. And it's actually a program to work on the self, where you do a musharata and then muhassabah. As much as I appreciate the Arabic language, the issue with many Islamic videos is, we simply do not understand. Within Christian orthodoxy, for example, there are many Greek words that are being used, but every single time the people make at least an effort to translate them to us. It would be beautiful to see if scholars could translate those words to us non-Arabic speakers. So you do, you actually commit like, I'm not going to backbite and you commit to doing it for 40 days. 40 days straight, because it takes 40 days to really, Allah swt gave 40 nights. He gave 40 nights to prepare for the meeting, he gave Moses 40 nights to prepare. And Jesus fasted for 40 days. 40, this is why in Jama'at Tabligh they go out for 40 days. There's a big secret in the number 40. And so you do 40 days of, I'm not going to backbite for 40 days. And if you do, you have to do mu'aqab at the end of the day. And then, what is mu'aqab? You start over if you didn't do it. And then you do a mu'aqab, but you have to punish yourself. Even a Wahhaban said, I made many oaths to give up backbiting. And I ended up fasting a lot, because he would break the oath, he'd do another and then he'd have to fast. And he said, so I decided that I would give a dinar in charity every time I spoke ill of someone. And he said, because of my love for money, I was able to finally give up, because he made his oath instead of fasting, breaking his oath. So I think that's something that you can practice. It's just working on things. One of the things, most of us in insana, you know, the human being knows his own soul. Even if he gives his excuses, he knows his own soul. Of course, his self accountability, essentially, you will always have to face yourself in the mirror. You cannot escape yourself. Even if you escape a situation, you weaseled yourself through something and nobody saw it. You got away. Ho, ho, ho. The reality is, you saw it. You will always see what you have done. And you will always have to face your own judgment first. This is why I have to repeat, know thyself. And then you can know God. You're in a constant battle with yourself. And when you set out to do something or to not do something, and then you fail, you know that you failed. And that is the beauty of self accountability. What's wrong? It's very good to ask people. I mean, I always get shocked sometimes. Do I do this or do I do that? Yes, you do. You know, that's an ouch. But it's something that you have to take reflection from other people. So that's important. And then the best thing, and this is absolutely well established, is prayer on the Prophet's life. So if you make it a consistent practice, your soul will align. And this is something witnessed by many, many people. So people that do consistent practice of prayer on the Prophet's life, that it has an effect on the heart. What does that exactly mean? Please let me know in the comments section as well. Prayer on the Prophet. As far as I know, Muslims are commanded to pray to Allah and not to Mohammed. So please let me know and clarify this for me. And they really begin to behave in a much better way. But each of us have our trials and tribulations. All right. This is it for today's short video. I absolutely love this subject. As you can clearly see, the ego is simply such a fascinating enemy that we have to face on a daily basis. People ask me, how do you get rid of the ego? You don't. You don't get rid of the ego. You face the ego and you identify the ego and you detach the ego from yourself. That's all you can do. Once you understand that you are not the ego, this is when the liberation starts. All right guys, but this is it for today's video. If you liked it, leave the thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed already, guys, please do so. And if you want to support this channel via Patreon, for example, help me out and click on the description box below. Check out the links. Thank you so much for that. As always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace.