Remember Me

I still have a lot to learn. I am one of those people who has to learn things the hard way. Although I've attempted to extricate this difficulty from my life, it's a test for me and I keep trying to do my best to reconcile. I need black as much as I need white. Contrast never fails to show me what I need to know. Because of this tendency, I've longed for protection. By protection I mean assurance. I'd like to share something I've learned from a recent lecture  based on the research of Dr. Amena Syed (clinical psychologist and neuroscientist). It has to do with the mind/heart connection.

Nouman Ali Khan said “The heart and the brain help us make decisions, but the heart is in the driver seat”. The heart communicates to the body in four ways: Biochemical communication (heart hormones release into the blood stream affecting the body), Biophysical communication (through blood pressure and sound waves), Energetic communication (through electromagnetic fields) and Neurological communication (sensory neurons in the heart relay information to the brain through the nervous system). These systems communicate to us primarily in a default mode. This default mode allows us to live and breath just as any mammal does, a kind of auto pilot. Science has shown that this same mechanism can do so much more. We can train our brain to think a certain way and actually re-shape it. The scientific term for this is neuroplastiscity.

The spiritual body has similar functioning. Research found that 30 minutes of mindfulness a day actually changes the brain. Mindfulness like silent meditation increases the grey matter or cortical thickness (ie: intelligence) in four areas: The anterior cingulate cortex responsible for self-regulation, error and conflict detection, the prefrontal lobe managing planning, problem solving and emotion regulation, the hippocampus with learning and memory, and finally the amygdala which shrinks and removes emotions of anxiety and depression and is the link between brain areas associated with higher order brain functions.

The most interesting question from the lecture came when the presenter said “That's just practising silent meditation, but what if this mindfulness is also associated with athkar, with remembering Allah?” Dikr is meditation plus prayer that involves the remembrance of Allah and forms a connection between ourselves and Him in a very personal way. A beautiful quote in the Qur'an is: "Remember Me - I will remember you." (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:152) It differs from salah because it can be done spontaneously and even silently felt in the heart. With dikr you slowly engrave a good remembrance of Allah, start believing in Allah's mercy and protection, free yourself from being enslaved to your desires and perishable things, become tied to your creator finding it easy to listen to him and to follow his guidelines bettering our lives. Without dikr, our brains misfire:

“And whoever turns away from My remembrance – indeed he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind. He will say, My Lord why have you raised me blind while I was [once] seeing? [Allah] will say, Thus did Our signs come to you and you forgot them; and thus this Day you will be forgotten.” (Taha 20:124-126)

Remembering Allah means concentrating on one good thing in your life with every tasbeeh alhamdulillah, with every Allah akbar think of one difficulty acknowledging that Allah is greater than our struggles notice the beautiful creation around us with a “wow” a subhanallah, with every astaghfirullah, one sin you would like to repent for.

When we remember Allah, our hearts are assured and we are able to react properly to every situation we are put in and think clearly. Which brings me to a point outside of the lecture. How is firasah (intuition or deep judgement) tied to dikr (prayer through remembrance)? If dikr is the pumping of the heart, then firasah is the hormone released into the bloodstream. Combined they are the product of our spiritual heart and when developed will allow us to “react properly to every situation”. Taken from The Station of Firasah Imam Ibn al-Qayyim from Madarij As-Salikeen:

Says the Hafiz:

“Firasah is a sense of visual acumen, perception and insight. Allah says, "Surely! In this are the signs for the mutawassimeen [those who read the signs]." [15:75] and The firasah is a light which Allah, subhanahu wa ta`ala, deposits in the heart of His servant. By this light, His servant distinguishes between truth and falsehood and between right and wrong.”

And with the regard to the meaning of mutawassimeen, here is what some of the great interpreters of the Qur'an said about it: Mujahid said it is "those who have visual acuity." Ibn `Abbas (r) said that it means "those who watch closely." Qatadah said that it means "those who learn the lessons." And Muqatil said that it means "those who reflect". There is no contradiction or apparent incompatibility amongst these interpretations.
 

Firasah is linked to three human organs: the eye, ear and heart. His eye examines the look and the signs, his ear examines the speech, the over expressions, oblique inferences and hints, content, logic and tone of voice. And his heart analyzes both what is seen and heard to perceive hidden thoughts of others. His analysis and examination of the interior compared to the exterior is like one who examines currency to see if it is counterfeit after examining the outside.

There are two factors in firasah. One is the quality of one's mind, the sharpness of the heart and the intelligence. The second is the appearance of the signs and indications on others. When both factors are present then one's firasah may not be wrong.

The ones who had the best firasah aside from our Prophet (swt) were the companions, men like Abu Bakr (r) and Umar (r). The challenge for our society is firstly to learn how to pray properly and secondly to filter out the noise and fastness of life which clouds our ability to see with sharpness. What an incredible gift dikr is. The acuity gained is the protection, the assurance the possibility to know ourselves and cleans ourselves before we are in the grave where it will be 70000 times more difficult to be cleansed. Dikr allows our nafs to be cut out like the sharpness of lion's teeth into its prey.