How To Master Your Nafs Part 2 – Dhikr
Sh Hamza Yusuf wrote a popular book, translating and explaining a classical Islamic spiritual text, called ‘Purification Of The Heart’. It’s an excellent book and there are very few like it available in English. It breaks down each of the psycho-spiritual diseases of the human heart and then goes into practical cures for each of them. The diseases range from anger, envy, and fantasising to procrastination and heedlessness.
Naturally when I first looked at the book in an Islamic bookshop somewhere, I skipped straight to the “juicy bits” – the overall root diseases of the heart, and their cures. Do you want to know what the cure is for pretty much all of the dis-eases of the human heart, from an Islamic spiritual perspective…?
Dhikr.
Dhikr is often translated as ‘rememberance of Allah’. And herein lies the problem. How can you ‘remember’ Allah, when Allah is incomparable? It is impossible, isn’t it? To remember is to bring something to mind, but whatever you bring to mind when you ‘think of Allah’ is not Allah, so you are not remembering Allah. Unless…
You first accept this reality: freeing your mind from thought, (which I also refer to as the ‘thinking-mind’, ‘nafs-thoughts’, ‘the ego’, or ‘the nafs’) is the closest you will ever be to Allah. If you want to ‘remember Allah’, and be in a state of true, deep dhikr, you must clear your mind of all thought. When your mind is free from thought, you will notice you are closer to Allah than you’ve ever been before. You are now in a state conducive to real ‘dhikr’. In fact, you are in a state of ‘ihsan’ and dhikr is what your body & tongue do when you are in this state. If you’re a Muslim you’ve almost certainly been in this state before, probably during some form of worship – you just didn’t realise how you did it.
In future posts, I will break down all the different ways you can get into this state of ‘spiritual presence’, which in Quranic terminology is called ‘ihsan’ and is an internal requisite if you want to benefit from your ‘dhikr’ and worship. I’ll also show you which everyday activities automatically put you in this state – such activities are considered by many to be ‘excellent’ things to do. However, for now, it is important that you recognise that to be in a state of true dhikr is to free your mind from all thoughts. That will bring you closer to Allah than anything else you can do. In this state of no-mind, you have pure awareness of Allah, and when you choose to say ‘subhanAllah’ in this state, it will be about 1 billion times more powerful. Don’t take my word for it – try it for yourself.
The Quran – The Greatest Form Of Dhikr
Of course we know that the Quran is the highest form of dhikr. However, only when your mind is quiet do you open up the space inside yourself for the Quran to be absorbed. If your mind is thinking millions of irrelevant thoughts as you are reading the Quran, you will miss the point of what you’re reading (that’s if you understand the Quran in the first place). If you are reading the Quran without understanding it, because you haven’t yet invested a few hours into learning basic Arabic, then the only way you can really benefit from such reading is by being intensely present whilst reciting the words.
Let all your acts of worship enhance your awareness of the present moment. Why? Because when you are fully aware of the present moment, your nafs-thoughts disintegrate – at least in that moment you are the master of your nafs; you are in a state of ‘ihsan’ (spiritual presence).
You do not need to be a scholar or a saint to do real, pure dhikr. It is your birthright, and you can do it right now, as you sit in your chair, reading this article. When you get into this state of being free from thoughts of the future and the past, you will automatically be fully aware of the present moment. You’ll be fully in tune with ‘Reality’ (al-Haqq). In other words, you’ll be aware of Allah (SWT).
Of course, your nafs will do everything it can to stop you from becoming aware of its never ending stream of thoughts, that you identify with. But your nafs can’t do much, once you become aware of the fact that ‘dhikr’ is worship, and being in a state of dhikr is tantamount to being ‘present’ – free from thought.
Get into the state of no-mind (the previous article gave you a couple of ways how), notice your thoughts, and let them go and when your mind is free from thought, consciously praise Allah. Again, if you want a deep, powerful, comprehensive training to help you re-connect with the Quran, check out the recently released Quran For Busy People Webclass here.
Let me know how that improves your connection with Allah or if you have any questions, by writing in the comments boxes below.
