SATURDAY NIGHT WITH EGO (Awaluddin Syamsu)

I write this paper as a result of our Saturday night discussion at sister Yukiko’s house. One of way to be happy is by controlling our ego. And it is said that to have a control on something we need to recognize it. Therefore this paper will present two ways of detecting whether we are doing something due to our ego or pure intention to Allah SWT.

To begin with, I would like to summarize Hasrul’s comment which was based on Ismail Raji Alfaruqi’s perspective on ego. There are two kind of ego. The first one is ego-centrism and the second one is universal ego. Ego-centrism means doing something to pursue a personal pleasure, whereas universal ego is that to do something for the sake of community. Having said that ego-centrism is bad while universal ego is good. In this paper, ego-centrism will be our focus. The reason is because by controlling our ego-centrism. We can step forward to universal ego.

As it is said by Ismail Raji Al-faruqi that ego-centrism is bad therefore we need to recognize it. There are two ways to do it. The first one is by asking ourselves “do I do this activity for my pleasure?”. If the answer is yes, it means that we need to change our intention. The second one is by asking ourselves “do we put ourselves as a victim based view?”. If the answer is also yes. It is a must for us to change our intention. One example of victim based view is that when you are working in one company that you feel uncomfortable with something that make you complain, while you are saying “uncomfortable and complaining” it means that you are not free. It is because you put yourself as a victim based view.

Purifying our intention will free us from ego-centrism. Doing something for the sake of Allah SWT will free us from ego-centrism because we do things to please Allah SWT. Not to please ourselves, also it can help us to get us from victim based on view. It because of we do things only to pursue reward from Allah SWT. Whatever the result, we do not put ourselves as victim because since the beginning we are not there but Allah SWT.

In conclusion, to escape ourselves from ego-centrism we need to purify our intention to the God and do not ever put yourself as a victim based view. Doing something is only for Him.