Page 37 - The Solution To Secret Sorrows

Harun Yahya

is only one Power Who can protect people's advantages, and that
Power is Allah. Neither selfishness nor the pursuit of his own inter-
ests can bring a person any advantage.
Allah explains this in a verse:
If Allah afflicts you with harm, no one can remove it except
Him. If He desires good for you, no one can avert His favor.
He bestows it on whichever of His servants He wills. He is
Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Surah Yunus: 107)
People's egotism emerges most clearly through their passion
for life and property. For example, when a person is asked to lend
something he owns, he may lie and say, "I don't have it with me," be-
cause he doesn't want to hand it over. This selfish tendency mani-
fests itself at every stage of life. Such people want a fine meal to be
served to them alone. To avoid sharing it with others, they take
pains to ensure that they dine when nobody else is in the house.
When sharing is unavoidable, they keep the choicest parts of the
meal for themselves and offer the others what is left. In the same
way, when there is a difficult job to be done, they use various ex-
cuses to escape doing it and try to arrange for someone else to do it.
They regard their own selves as more important than anybody
else's. For this reason they still seek ways of escaping work, even if
they have nothing to do and others are very tired or busy.
This attitude that such people conceal in their hearts is not lim-
ited to property and food, but becomes apparent in many other sub-
jects. One whose soul is not cleansed of egotism will stoop to many
things. He always wants his own wishes to be carried out and his to
be the last word. For example, when many others are present, he
wants to listen to his choice of music and watch his choice of TV pro-
grams. He never regards the wishes of others as a priority. He rushes
to grab the most comfortable seat. When work is being divided up,

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