Journey of the Heart: When Pride Stands Between Us and Hidayah

KOPITALK JIWA

Reflections from Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 6–7

When I was younger, I did not always reject advice by saying the advice was wrong.

Sometimes I rejected it by judging the person who gave it.

Who are you to advise me?

You are not perfect either.

Maybe you need this more than I do.

I may not always have said those words out loud. But sometimes, quietly inside, that was the voice. The voice that did not want to be corrected. The voice that preferred to find fault in the adviser rather than face the truth in the advice.

Looking back now, it is uncomfortable to admit.

But perhaps that is why the memory is useful.

Because many of us do not reject reminders directly.

We reject them sideways.

The tone was wrong. The timing was off. The person was not qualified. The adviser was not perfect. The reminder was too blunt. The advice was too simple.

And once we find a weakness in the person giving the advice, we feel excused from examining the advice itself.

That is how ego protects itself. It does not always shout. Sometimes it argues quietly. Sometimes it dresses itself as discernment. Sometimes it calls itself self-respect. Sometimes it simply says, I already know.

But behind all of that, the heart is refusing to be humbled.

This thought returned to me during a recent taddabur class on Surah Al-Baqarah, particularly ayat 6 and 7.

The verses speak of those who reject truth until warning no longer moves them. Whether they are warned or not, they do not believe. Then comes the harder image — their hearts are sealed, their hearing closed, their sight covered.

These are heavy verses.

At first, they can feel distant. We assume they belong to another time, another people, another story. In the taddabur class, we were reminded that the context relates to those who rejected the Prophet ﴿صلى الله عليه وسلم﴾ despite recognising the signs — among them, some who had enough knowledge to identify truth, but whose arrogance became a wall between them and hidayah.

But the Qur’an is not read so that we may point at others.

It is read so that we may recognise the same danger before it settles inside ourselves.

The issue is not a race or a people. It is an attitude. A culture of pride. A habit of refusing truth when truth threatens our comfort, our position, or our self-image.

Arrogance is not owned by one community. Ego is not confined to one era. Pride can enter any heart — including ours. And once pride becomes comfortable, even good advice can begin to sound like an insult.

That, to me, is the deeper warning of these ayat.

Sometimes the problem is not that truth has not arrived.

Sometimes truth has arrived many times.

But the heart has become too proud to receive it.

Think about how the sealing does not begin with one dramatic act. It begins slowly. Almost invisibly.

A reminder rejected today. An advice dismissed tomorrow. A mistake defended again. A sin quietly normalised. A truth repeatedly postponed.

A little arrogance, fed often enough, until the heart grows less sensitive.

At first, advice hurts. Then it irritates. Then it offends. Then it becomes noise. And one day, perhaps, it no longer enters at all.

That is the real danger.

Not when advice still stings. But when advice no longer reaches us. Not when a reminder disturbs us. But when reminders no longer disturb us at all.

As long as advice still unsettles the heart, perhaps there is still life there. As long as a reminder still makes us pause, perhaps the door is still open. As long as we can still feel shame, regret, or the pull to return — perhaps hidayah is still knocking.

But when nothing enters anymore, that is when the heart should be afraid.

This does not mean every piece of advice is right, or that every critic is fair.

Some criticism is unkind. Some advice is delivered without wisdom. A correct message can arrive in the wrong hands, at the wrong moment, in the wrong tone. I learned that too — truth must be carried with mercy. Advice must come from a place of care, not superiority.

But that is only one side of the lesson.

The other side is harder.

Even when the advice is not perfectly given, is there still something true in it for me? Even when the adviser is flawed, is the reminder still useful? Even when my ego feels bruised, is Allah showing me something I need to face?

Those are difficult questions. Because the ego does not like questions that make it smaller. It prefers to ask, Who are you to advise me?

But the heart that wants hidayah must learn to ask something else entirely.

Is there truth here?

That small shift — from defending to listening — can save the heart.

The taddabur class also reminded us of something quietly comforting.

The duty is to convey. The response belongs to Allah.

This was a comfort to the Prophet ﴿صلى الله عليه وسلم﴾ himself when people turned away. His task was to deliver truth with patience, sincerity and clarity. Whether hearts opened or closed was not fully in his hands.

There is a lesson there for all of us.

Parents cannot own the hearts of their children. Teachers cannot force every student to truly listen. Leaders cannot demand that every reminder lands. Friends cannot control the people they love.

We can advise. We can show a better way. We can make du‘a.

But guidance belongs to Allah.

That should humble the one who advises.

And soften the one who is being advised.

In the end, the question I carried home from that class was not about other people.

It was about my own heart.

Where do I still resist truth? Where do I grow defensive when I should grow quiet? Where do I judge the person advising me, so I do not have to face the advice? Where do I speak when I should first correct myself? Where has pride made me less open to hidayah than I believe myself to be?

These are uncomfortable questions.

But a heart that can still be questioned is a heart that can still be guided.

Perhaps the real mercy is not that we are already good enough.

Perhaps the real mercy is that Allah still sends reminders — through verses, through teachers, through the people closest to us, through the very mistakes we keep making, through advice we did not ask for and did not want.

Surah Al-Baqarah ayat 6 and 7 do not only describe a distant people.

They also describe a possibility.

A direction any heart can drift toward, quietly and gradually, if pride is left unchecked and humility is quietly abandoned.

A heart may not close because guidance never came.

It may close because guidance came again and again — and pride kept standing at the door.

Sometimes we are not short of reminders.

We are short of the humility to receive them.

And the closed door we feared was never somewhere out there.

It was always here — inside the heart.

KopiTalk Jiwa is a column about the quieter things — faith, feeling, and the examined life.