Galatians 6:3 Meaning For If a Man Thinks Himself

ʿUjb: Being pleased with yourself Al-Ghazali named the quiet enjoyment a person takes in their own goodness. The pleasure grows after something goes right, when a small voice adds that you were the reason it went right. From there you start counting as yours what was only handed to you, and everyone around you begins to look a little smaller.

Ghurūr: Being fooled by yourself Al-Ghazali wrote a whole book on this, the fog a person makes and then lives inside. Nobody else is telling the lie, so nobody can catch you at it. The high opinion hardens over the years until it stops feeling like an opinion and starts feeling like a fact about the world.

Faqr: Owning nothing of your own Sufis call the human position poverty, taking the Quran's line that people are the poor ones and God is rich. Your health, your quickness, your years, even the wish to do good, all of it arrived from elsewhere and can be taken back. Seeing that does not make a person feel worthless; it lifts a weight, since you stop defending a standing you never earned.

A sin that leaves you humble is better than an act of obedience that leaves you proud: pride damages more than the fall does Ibn Ata Allah put it that way, and it bites hardest when you are looking at someone else's mistake. The person who slipped knows where they stand; you, feeling steady, may have no idea. Their failure at least left them honest, while the good feeling you get from the comparison can keep you from ever checking.

Muḥāsaba: Taking account of yourself Al-Ghazali describes sitting down with yourself the way a shopkeeper goes through the books. You look at what you did today rather than at the general impression you carry around, and the two rarely match. The impression is made of your best moments, so people who check regularly end up with a smaller and steadier view of themselves.