In Music of the Soul, Sidi says tawbah (repentance) is a way that humans are able to reach the station where they can sit in the Presence of Allah and put on the clothes of Reality.
There are 3 conditions for repentance.
1. Feel grief for what you have done.
2. You must stop doing whatever you are repenting for immediately.
3. You must commit to not doing the thing you are asking repentance for ever again. There also needs to be repayment of debts and reconciliation of wrongs.
“To be perfect in your repentance, first be ready to do what God has ordered and do not look back to your past. Do not think of the wrong things or the errors you made previously. Don’t let these things create a wall forbidding your return to Allah. Escape to God alone with the rest of your life, with every moment.”
Be patient and ask for God’s mercy. If you are truthful and sincere in your repentance, God will speak to your heart and you will begin to know the Reality of divine presence. This begins the inner war, al-jihad, al-mujahada. Leave behind your bad thoughts and your friends who encourage you to do bad things. If you continue to hang out with those friends and your old thoughts, you will return to your old way and be detoured from your path to God. Live each moment as if you knew God was watching your every thought and action. Each day ask for forgiveness with your tongue, your heart, your spirit, your senses, your body, and soul and Allah will forgive you because He is the Forgiver and the Merciful. It is through this process of sinning and forgiveness that Allah’s Qualities of Forgiveness and Mercy are revealed to us – a way for us to reveal His hidden treasure. Some have looked at God as a jailor. He is not. Allah is ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim, the Compassionate and the Merciful.
Allah judges us by our intention and not necessarily by our actions. To read about this concept in depth, read Chapter 13 Clarification of When the Worshipper Will Be Judged for the Whispers and Deeds of the Heart and When He Will Be Excused and Forgiven in Sidi’s book, “Secrets of the Heart”.
Sidi gives a number of ways for us to do tawba. Many of them are outlined in “He Who Knows Himself Knows His Lord”. I will list some of these practices.
A daily practice for repentance is al-wird.
On page 63-64 of HWKHKHL Sidi teaches to say la ‘illa-llah while prolonging the la and emphasizing the hamzah of ‘il in ‘ilaha. He says repeating this removes any sin and there is no action equal to reciting it.
See also the First Station of the Heart and Tawba Process with the Qualities.
Increase your practice of salat.
Decrease your food 1/3 solid, 1/3 liquid, 1/3 air. Two meal daily. Or fast.
Do Remembrance at 3 AM.
Click here to hear the chapter in Music of the Soul titled, At-Tawba: Repentance. If you’d like to hear me read the first station of the heart, click here: At-Tawba: Return to God.
“Hardship may dishearten at first, but every hardship passes away. All despair is followed by hope; all darkness is followed by sunshine.”– Rumi, “Mathnawi”
The doorway to return to the Beloved is always open right now, in this moment. In the Qur’an we find “Whoever does tawba [turning away from sin and back to God], puts faith in God, and acts rightly, God will change his/her evil ways into beautiful virtues” (Surat al-Furqan 25:70). And as Muhammad said, “Anyone who turns away (does tawba) from his/her sin, it is as if s/he has no sin.” – Dr. Abdul Haqq Alan Godlas
“Sometimes people have a negative reaction to ‘repentance’ or ‘asking for forgiveness.’ For some people, the idea of repentance can feel heavy and loaded with a lot of shame and guilty. The problem is, few people really understand what it REALLY means. Here are 3 new meanings for you to consider: One thing that helped me with this was to understand that the Arabic word tawba, usually translated as ‘repentance,’ literally means ‘return.’ So when we ‘repent,’ and seek forgiveness, we are actually returning to Divine Love and returning back to the original pure, holy, loving essence of our own nature that is a reflection of Divine Love. In the Bible’s Greek New Testament the word that is translated as repentance is metanoia, which means to ‘rethink’ or a ‘change of mind.’ So when we are invited to repentance, we are really being invited to re-think our mistakes and return to our original state of wholeness and unity with our Creator and our fellow creatures. Islam offers some very beautiful and hopeful teachings about forgiveness. The Prophet Muhammah (saws) said, ‘The repentant one is as one without sin; for repentance erases what happened before it.’ What a beautiful thought. What would it be like if your slate was wiped clean, all your mistakes completely erased, and all the negative repercussions evaporated? What would you life be like if all of your mistakes were actually transformed into good deeds? In other words, once you repent and return to love, instead of the results of your mistakes harming you and other people, they would actually bless you and others! This is what i mean by how freeing repentance can be.”
– University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism newsletter.