One of the methods of meditation, or prayer, that’s common to all of the different Sufi Tariqats, or Sufi groups, is dhikr. And dhikr means the repetition of the names of God and meditating while saying those names. An example would be Rahman and Rahim, which are mercy and compassion, and the repetition of “ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, ar-Rahman ar-Rahim” the words have a certain vibratory nature, a certain resonance. And you say those words with the intention that the resonance of those words becomes part of your resonance.
Whenever dhikrs are begun, usually, the first word that is repeated is ‘Astaghfirullah al azeem, Astaghfirullah al azeem, Astaghfirullah al azeem’ which means God forgive me. And it’s interesting that they all begin with God forgive me, but it’s also evident why they all begin with God forgive me.
Whatever our state, whatever our intention, there’s always forgiveness necessary. Purity, absolute purity, is not something that we can imagine that we’ve accomplished. We must be humble and understand that we are always in need of improvement. So because of that, we always begin with ‘Astaghfirullah al azeem’ – God forgive me.
But in that acknowledgement there is a lot of understanding; God forgive me is a plea, a plea to Allah to forgive us for what has been done, but also, in verbalizing that plea there is also the understanding that God forgives. And that’s why we ask for forgiveness. So we understand that if we’ve made a mistake, if we’ve done something wrong Allah is merciful and Allah will forgive us.
A lot of people repeat ‘Astaghfirullah al azeem, Astaghfirullah al azeem’ all day long, it becomes their mode, but we should also understand that we can’t keep doing things inappropriately and just asking for forgiveness. That is certainly not a true intention when we ask for forgiveness if as soon as you ask for forgiveness, you go back to the things you’ve asked to be forgiven for.
So, in asking for forgiveness we are also proclaiming simultaneously repentance, and repentance means that whatever it is that we’ve done, we are setting up the intention that we will not do it again, and we ask God’s forgiveness for what it is that we’ve done, and we acknowledge that we understand that we’ve done things wrong.
Which brings us to: well where do we go from here? Where we go from here is to change our state, and we should understand that we are capable of changing our state. Think about during the day, all of the different emotions, and moods, and states that we’re in. You may be angry at somebody, and then that anger dissipates and then you may see somebody that you love and that state takes over. But states are constantly in alteration.
The point being, in getting to know who we are, we need to know what our moods are and what our states are, and we need to be cognizant of our states as they occur. So if we’re in a bad mood…
