ভূমিকা
Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Family-life Ethics The Eleventh Talk Training Oneself So far our discussion was on the formation of families and its advantages. In the previous discussion, the advantages were mentioned. One of these is the training of the self within the family. Home is a place for embellishing oneself with noble traits. Within the family, the husband and wife can train themselves, embellish themselves with noble traits.
They can not only cultivate good habits themselves, but also motivate other members of the family to follow suit. But in the eyes of sociologists, achieving these two things - training themselves and motivating others, is rather difficult. A person needs some effort for curbing the base traits and planting the sapling of virtue in his mind. Normally people struggle to make a smooth transformation in their natures.
To nourish this sapling one has to make strenuous efforts. He has to persevere. It is said that the nafse ammara (base instinct) is like an elephant. The trainer of an elephant has to constantly hit on its head to train it. If there is the slightest negligence on the part of the trainer, the animal can overcome him. The base instincts and the mean traits in a person are also like the untrained elephant.
Believe me, all the Prophets (s.a.) came to the world, with their books, for the sole purpose of guiding the people to curb their nafse ammara!
The Prophets (s.a.) have gone through untold hardships performing this task. But their success was not commensurate with the toil put in by them.