Fighting and Taming Our Own Devil Inside (quote, pray, believer)

[aatayyab]

You and I continue to defend our own mistakes, views, stupidities and what not despite first of all over-powering the bigger devil inside our own self which motivates us to do harm to everyone around us, especially to those who are our loved ones, close friends, co-workers or just acquaintances. That way of living a life is a very dangerous course of action which is bound to bring misery after misery to our own self and injuring us physically and spiritually as well. Trying to win an argument at any cost without looking deeper inside our own self and giving an ear to other person's valid points of views is not a good way to live a life. Such a person will be a complete failure in life even if that person commands the best possible position in this world or has enormous amount of wealth. That person is a hallow one inside having no depths or matter to support his or her being on earth.

None of us know or recognize that out of these external wars with our friends, relatives, neighbors, etc., there is a bigger war to fight in this world i.e. the inner war with the devil inside every one of us that pushes us to do all those acts which bring misery and trouble not only to everyone around us but to our own selves. No amount of external hurt can equal the internal hurt that inner devil of our own can cause us. If someone hurts you, you have equal right to hurt that person in return. However, revenge usually overrides the amount of hurt caused by other person. No amount of revenge can tame that devil inside you from the moment you let it loose and commit the same amount of wrong onto your enemy. Despite our best efforts, enemies are always around us without us knowing. They are either contemplating on hurting us, praying bad for our well-being or just jealous. The easiest thing would be an equally powerful and natural animosity of yours towards them. The moment you'd let your inner devil fight that war with those enemies of yours without your own calmness, wisdom, forgiveness and/or tact, the whole situation and tides will turn against you. Before hurting and harming that enemy of yours, you had only one enemy. Now, you got two enemies to fight i.e. the enemy and the inner devil of yours turned against your own being.

All of this situation can easily be handled by a simple and mere "recognition" of the presence of that devil inside us. We must admit that although all of us are born as innocent babies, but our up-bringing, friends, the kind of company we keep, greed, selfishness and desires have given birth to another person inside us who is our own biggest enemy. If we can keep everyone safe from being hurt by our tongue or hands, that is the biggest achievement that one can think of before leaving this earth.

20 years ago, I was traveling on a public bus and there was a recent increase in the fare which most of the public did not know. So, when the bus conductor demanded more money from one passenger, the passenger became angry with the conductor and both were about to start a fight when a huge guy sitting behind me stood up and held both conductor and passenger with hands like little babies and said "Stop this non-sense, I just finished my 25 years of imprisonment due to being angry on a petty matter with someone and killing him". On hearing this, everyone got shocked, silent and for a moment it seemed as if time stopped.

And then, there was another person who was hit violently, bled, deceived, mis-represented, stolen money from, life/career destroyed and later his kid was murdered by someone. The whole situation obviously would have ended terribly if that person would have taken revenge. But instead he chose life not only for himself, but for that enemy's life, his family and every loved one of his. Although that sort of containment and refraining power does not come that easily to us weak human beings made of flesh and bones, yet when you'd fight your own devil inside you and win over it, you can make such impossible things happen and prove to everyone around you and your own loved ones as a stronger person despite any amount of the enormity of the situation's weakness.

The real power does not lie in your ability to take revenge. You are considered powerful only when you have all the capability, strength, reach and motivation to take the revenge, but you choose not to and let life take its own course. Some stronger people use forgiveness and some try to leave the matters in the hands of God. For a non-believer, that mere recognition of his own victory over his own devil is all the happiness, relief and calmness that one needs to lead the rest of his life to live with. Although complete forgiveness or forgetting may not happen and that person might actually become a very violent volcano, but the mere recognition of that devil inside would keep that volcano from erupting unless any other similar or related event does not repeat itself or the same enemy continues to play with his life, emotions, feelings or tries to repeat the same hurt.

Hence, we need to be very careful with every word that we speak and every action of ours. There are sometimes unintended bad consequences and hurt caused to someone due to our words and actions which can easily be repaired by our seeking true forgiveness, not a mere apology. I used this word "mere apology" deliberately cause sometimes we may think that we said sorry and asked for an apology and try to move on without actually looking at the aggrieved one whether he or she did really and truly accept it or they did it only to keep a good face but harboring a grudge and an animosity deep in their hearts which could later prove fatal or harmful to our self without us knowing or expecting.

Hopefully all of us lead a good and happy life without meaning any harm to anyone out there knowingly or unknowingly. Cause not everyone is that much powerful to overcome the devil inside their own self by themselves and we should do our best to help such a person to overcome not only his or her devil, but our own devils inside ourselves.

Amir

[DrummerBoy]

I guess that post is just a long, long, long way of saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

[XVicariousX]

i call it ego. makes me sad sometimes, but i dont think theres really anyway to control it, only to realize it, but were always doing it, even subconsciously, its a part of us.

[nightflight]

I love my inner devil.

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by nightflight

I love my inner devil.

I love my inner self. No devil in here, or any other imaginary deities, good or bad.