Ibnu Qayim affirms the necessity of constantly following and checking on our souls to check for the acts of obedience in quality rather than quantity. He says;
“Some of the worshipers have accustomed their
determinations to keep doing many acts of obedience without caring to check
their souls from time to time for any vileness and without holding themselves
accountable and without purifying themselves from the tarnishing of conceit”.
For this
reason watching oneself is the noblest mission for any worshiper and the best
way to clear it from the impurities and the thorns of hypocrisy. This way his
deeds will be as heavy as the mountains and so small in his eyes.
If you want
to comprehend this meaning properly then ponder the time that you assign for
reading the Qur’an, see if you’re trying to ignore the duty of understanding
and contemplating each verse to see where you’re standing from it, see if
you’re applying it on the ailments of your heart, see how you’re stopping at
each and every verse to ponder. If you accustom yourself to pondering each
verse, applying it on yourself, worshiping Allah Rabbul Jallaluh with it, using
it as a medication for your heart you will find it very difficult leaving one
verse and moving on to the other.
Same thing if you combine your heart for just two raka’at; giving them all your presence and watching yourself in every move and word. You will hardly be able to pray above these two except with great difficulty. But if your heart goes void from all this you will able to make countless numbers of raka’at because too much obedience with very little contemplation is lack of understanding. But it is better to do more acts of obedience while watching you.
Allah
Rabbul Jallaluh says,
“sleeping little in the night-time,"
(TMQ, 51:17),
and in the
Divine Narration;
“My servant kept getting closer to Me through
the voluntary acts of worship so I would love him.”
If magnifying your act of obedience is a sin then belittling your sin is a far bigger sin. The learned ones are those who see their good deeds small and their sins large. The more your good deeds get smaller in your eyes the bigger they get in Allah’s Eyes, and the bigger they are in your eyes the smaller they become in Allah’s Eyes.”
Sleeping, eating and talking less: One of the things that help a lot with self-purification is cutting down on all these three. Too much talk without remembering Allah Rabbul Jallaluh hardens the heart and the farthest from Allah are those who have hard hearts. Too much eating increases the lusts and gives more channels for Satan to infiltrate our souls. Last but not least too much eating leads to too much sleeping and this latter makes us lazy and wastes our age. It was said, “He who eats much drinks much water and sleeps much; so he wastes a lot of time.”