They do analysis of prisoners when they’re released to try to establish how many go back to what they were doing before and end up in jail again. It’s called recidivism, and they talk about rates of recidivism; 60% rate of recidivism, 70% rate of recidivism, whatever.
Recently a man walked into a bank without a mask and he attempted to rob the bank. They gave him money, he walked out, and as he walked out they caught him, and he said, “I wanted to go back to jail.”
That was where he was comfortable.
In the recitation of the Zikr when we repeat the names of God, the remembrance of reality, we always begin with: “Astaghfirullah azeem, astaghfirullah azeem, astaghfirullah azeem” which means, “God forgive me.” Why? Because we are all recidivists; we all return to the crimes we’ve committed, and commit them again. Now these crimes don’t necessarily reach the level of societal abnormalities that put you back in jail, or put you in jail, but they do reach the level of falling from the path of purity and falling into the ways we used to be.
The nafs, our lower self that which is within us that is attune to the world is constantly clamoring to bring us back in to the illusory world and all of the traits that come with the involvement within it. We are constantly being bombarded by all of the different characteristics of the world, all of the grasping and pulling and hypnotisms and fascinations and glitters of the world. And we have parts of us that are attracted to all of that within us, and sometimes at a moment when we are not as conscious or as strong or as clear-thinking as we should be, we drift in that direction and things can enter into our being. Like desire, like overwhelming desire, like greed, like lust, like the need for things that is greater than the need for our connection to Allah.
So whenever we are in the midst of the world and the world becomes more important to us than our understanding of reality, and the world clouds our understanding of reality, and the world pulls us away from our understanding of reality, we have to ask for forgiveness. And we have to ask for the One who gives all to give us back a state of purity to allow us into the realm of those He has chosen.
So we say, “Astaghfirullah azeem, astaghfirullah azeem” – “Lord please forgive me for all the wrongs that I have done, please forgive me for all the times that I have strayed from your path knowingly and unknowingly.” Within us, as we move forward, we are not allowed to imagine that we have left the world and entered reality. We have to understand that as far as we’ve gotten, we still have a long way to go, and this is where humility is. Humility is in not imaging that we have accomplished all there is to accomplish in our relationship to our Lord. We are small and He is great, and we need to constantly strive forward to become more pure, more pure, and more pure. “Astaghfirullah azeem, astaghfirullah azeem, astaghfirullah azeem”. If we think we’ve gotten to the place of purity, that thought alone is indicative of the fact that we haven’t gotten to the place of purity…
