Islamic Perspectives: Mind control and repentence

A post on the "Psychology Today" website made me ponder over bad thoughts ,we have about past sins. Or sins we are thinking about and might be tempted to do in the future.

I once mentioned the "Dont think of an elephant" theorem in one of my previous posts. It is a similar phenomena. The more you try to forget about something the more you think about it. As research points out:

You're not the only one who feels that way, says Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner, author of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control. His research has shown that trying very hard not to think about something almost guarantees that we will think about it.

Now I guess the question becomes what do you do when you think of something that you want to forget about or don't want to think about. You would try to offload it somehow and cut the means to that thought.

I connect this to Sinning and tawba i.e. the Islamic perspectives. When you commit a sin, you are islamically encouraged not to ponder about it and repent right away while cutting the means to it. As Sunnipath says:

1) One shouldn't leave repentance if one keeps falling into the sin. Rather, one should keep renewing one's repentance--while striving to fulfill its conditions of sincere remorse, leaving the sin, and resolving never to return.

Often, sins are the manifestations of bad habits that have crept into our lives, and it takes repeated renewal of resolve to rid oneself of them. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) reminded us in many hadiths that, "Allah continues accepting the repentance of a servant until they take their very last breath." [Tirmidhi (3460) and Ahmad (5885), from Ibn Umar (Allah be pleased with him)]

(2) The key to successful repentance is not merely resolving to leave the sin, but to figure out what is leading to the sin, and to take the positive means to stay away from the causes of the sin.

So, for example, if one finds oneself watching impermissible things when using the internet alone at night in one's basement, then successful repentance would entail changing one's internet use such that the matters leading one to sin are avoided, while also fulfilling the conditions of sincere repentance (namely, remorse, leaving the sin, and resolving never to return).

The early Muslims used to say, "Whoever considers consequences is safe."

Instead you are encouraged to make tawba ASAP (i.e. repentance of sin which includes the acknowledgement of the sin to God) and move on. . Quoting from Sunnipath again:

The conditions for repentance are well known:

1. Leaving the sin;
2. Remorse over having committed the sin;
3. Resolve never to return to the sin;
4. (If it relates to the rights of another person, then to) Return the rights or property one wrongly took. [al-Bariqa fi Sharh al-Tariqa; Riyad al-Salihin]

If these conditions are truly met, then one can expect one's sins to be forgiven. However, one has to be very careful about how sincere one is in fulfilling one's conditions. It is recommended to seek forgiveness a lot, and to repent every time the sin comes to one's mind.

So you know what to do next time you try to get rid of bad thoughts.....Repent!