Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan delves on how religion itself becomes a means by which one promotes our own ego. It's ironic because the Deen came so we humble ourselves and now we are using that very Deen to express our arrogance. This is not something that happens only in our youth but happens amongst our elders too.
Where does ego come from? Ego comes from the starting point when someone doesn’t truly appreciate who Allah is. When that happens, we replace it with an appreciation of ourselves; that’s where it starts. On the inside there is an urge to show our supremacy where we assume that we are more righteous, more qualified and in a better position than the other, then in our heart, we have accumulated Kibr or arrogance.
The first big problem that helps us cleanse the heart is the remembrance of Allah. How often do we remember Allah? if you didn’t put any thought in any of the routine Adhkar that we do, then we have defeated its purpose. If we just don’t reflect upon them, then it is not dhikr, that’s just good review. That’s all that is.
Allah should be thanked and He should be praised for everything. Despite your troubles, you say Alhamdulillah but when you mean it, its something else. Now you are really remembering Allah. This Hamd of Allah and giving credit to Allah, what does that teach us about ourselves?
We should pray to Allah to help us place our trust in Allah and not allow our hearts to become hard. He should make us a people sincerely of dhikr to Allah and grant us the gift of better company than ourselves that keeps our ego in check.we should also pray for the ability to give advice to those around us and make us share that love and affection and humility with the other Muslims and show them that sincerity from the bottom of our heart. We should pray that Allah makes us capable of taking advice and making the best of it and not allowing the advice to become a means by which our egos are inflated and keep us humble before Him, forgive our shortcomings that have occurred in the past.