INTRODUCING MURAQABA

Murāqaba, in Islamic teachings, in a sense is many things. As a general term, it has specific connotations in Islamic practice. In particular, muraqaba can be said to be a practice of connecting with God’s watchfulness of us. Murāqaba comes from the Divine Name al-Raqīb, which means God being Ever-Watchful, and in our context, “Lovingly Ever-Watchful” of His servant. So Allah (swt) by definition of one of His Attributes, is Ever-Watchful of us. In this sense, murāqaba is simultaneously an insight, a practice of vigilant awareness, and ultimately a state or mode of being.  In this light, one can see why muraqaba in many ways forms the very foundation of Islamic spirituality. For the very sincerity of a Muslim, of a believer, and even more so for one who is on the spiritual path, is directly proportional to the degree of their recognition of God’s watchfulness of them, as well as their ability to connect with that awareness.

So those who are much more pious and who live a sacred life through all walks of their life, not just ritually, have more murāqabah of God. They are more watchful of God’s watchfulness of them, and are more sensitive to Allah’s knowing and seeing of them. Such reverence of God (taqwa) leads naturally to a desire to connect entirely with this watchfulness so that they can live a life where their heart is transparent before God’s witnessing of them, and where they’re own witnessing connects with God’s witnessing. It is in this spiritual sense that muraqaba leads to a deepening of the central pillar of Islam, namely the Shahada (Bearing Witness to God and His Messenger). When a human being steeped in the practice of muraqaba ultimately realizes ash-hadu an lā ilāha illa-Llāh wa ash-hadu an Muḥammadan rasūl Allah. That is, ”I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God”. The secret of this “bearing witness” in muraqaba, as one of my teachers has said, is found in the “I” who states “I bear witness”. That is, who is this “I” that is bearing witness? At first that "I" is you, the doer, or the one who begins the practice of muraqaba, as one who is ever-watchful of God’s Watchfulness.  But as the practice of muraqaba deepens, and becomes more subtle, your sense of self gives way, or surrenders to God’s Presence. It is then ultimatey God’s “I” that is bearing witness to Its own Reality through heart of the one in muraqaba. This would not only be the highest level of the shahādah, but the highest level of muraqaba. 

And in a sense, that is the goal of the murāqabah: to actually be able to connect with Allah’s seeing of you, and through that to "drop" or "surrender" your own “seeing” of Allah (swt), so that your attribute falls away and God’s attribute of seeing and ever-watchfulness subsumes you. With right intention and right connection, and with God’s grace through this practice, our self-attribution of “seeing” becomes annihilated in God’s Attribute of being Ever-Watchful (Ar-Raqib) and Seeing (Al-Basir) and knowing (Al-Alim); for God is the Near (Al-Qarib).  This recalls the Sacred utterance of God through the tongue of the Prophet (sal)/Hadith Qudis: "My servant draws near to me by nothing better than that wh ice I have obligated him to do. And then he draws nearer through the involantary acts of devotion, until I love Him. And when I love Him, I become the Hearing with which he hears, and the Seeing with which he sees...". It is “here”, through such Divine Love, where our presence gives way to the Divine Presence inside our heart. Where our aware presence, our aware, watchful presence merges, if you will, with the attribute of God’s aware presence and knowing of us. This merging, or falling away of our attribute of seeing or watchfulness, and the subsisting of God's Attribute of Seeing and Watchfulness,  is the very goal of murāqabah. This is the essence, height and depth of murāqabah, in reality of all true sprituality. 

So those who are pious, those who are religious, those who are spiritually sensitive, those who have taqwā, those who are conscientious of Allah’s presence, who revere God—they have some degree of murāqaba.  Such taqwa and muraqaba, is the cornerstone of all Islamic spirituality.  One can also then appreciate how the muḥāsaba (self inquiry/introspection) as it is taught here, is connected to how we teach murāqabah. Through a conscious cultivation of what could be called “the witnessing presence” of God in our Hearts, muhasaba and muraqaba become, respectively, the two poles of discernment between the Real Presence of God and the apparent illusion of otherness of ourselves, and concentration on the Presence of the Real (swt). One could call the muḥāsabah, an exercise of spiritual intention, and murāqabah an exercise of spiritual attention.

And so attention on God’s ever-Present Presence  is the focus of all kinds of murāqabah practice. To learn how to become more attentive to Allah’s presence in your heart, and in your life is the whole point. This is what murāqabah is about. And so there are meditative methods that can help us with this practice--such as watching over our breath. It is a state that is achieved—and it is a gift from God, swt—for the devout, for those who are pious, those who practice spiritual virtue, and ultimately the people of spiritual "unveiling", who are no longer veiled by the illusory otherness of a separate self. Why do such individuals pray beautifully?  Because they naturally sense that God is watching, and identify with their very being, with that "seeing". They wish to connect with God’s Loving-watching of them. And they feel a sense of fulfillment in that kind of awareness and experience, regardless of the perfection or imperfection of their outer acts of worship. And that that is the real goal of worship, and of their life.  The goal of all  real worship is nothing other than the knowing of God's Presence as our true Self. The goal of worship is actually to have an experiential knowledge or awareness of God. Such knowing of God through direct experience leads to a “seeing of God everywhere”. To see God everywhere means to experience God all the time, throughout our life. Seeing God everywhere is experiencing God all the time, and that experiencing of God all the time and everywhere is simply the result (through Grace) of connecting with His Seeing of you through muraqaba) and merging with that divine awareness or “witnessing presence”. 

This is the essence and the goal of the murāqabah, and really of all meditation and spiritual practice. But we have a particular language for this in Islamic teachings. This ultimately goes back to the authority of the Messenger of God (s), who defines spiritual excellence (iḥsān) as the following:  

An ta'abudAllaha ka annaka tarahu, “That you worship God as if you see Him; Fa in-lam takun tarah, “And if you do not see Him”; fa innahu yurak. “Then know that He sees you”.

Notice that in this very Prophetic definition of spiritual excellence, we find a connection between worship, seeing, and knowing: in other words worship/devotion and muraqaba. And this sense of “seeing” or “being watchful” or cultivating a “witnessing presence”, are the very elements that were just brought out in defining what murāqabah is, by the Messenger of God (s). For we are connecting with and we are becoming much more aware of God’s Seeing and Awareness of us. So to become more aware of God’s awareness of us is the essence, goal, and even practice of murāqaba. It’s all of these things in one. It is the very Prophetic definition of iḥsān, of spiritual excellence. 

So it can be appreciated by us that all the above concerning muraqaba is entirely rooted in the tradition from the beginning. Even the very definition given by the Prophet (s) anticipates stages of ihsan/muraqaba. There is the stage of iḥsān, where one worships God as if you see Him, and that if you can’t hold that state of "seeing" or watchfulness in your spiritual imagination—the “as if you see Him” of the Hadith-- then know that at least “He sees you”. That’s one level, where you bring in your mind a certitude of faith that He’s watching you. But at this stage, you’re not experientially connecting with that deeply enough in your heart.

The second stage is to actually experientially connect and recognize that you are seeing Him. And through that "seeing", to go beyond even that as your attribute of seeing Him begins to fall away through your continued surrendering to His Presence in the practice. Through continued and deepened muraqaba, you connect  more and more with His attribute of Seeing you, and you come to know its reality: “know that He sees you”. This would be the final stage, as the final statement of that ḥadīth of that summarizes quite succinctly what is Submission (islām,) what is Faith (īmān), and what is Spiritual Excellence (iḥsān), the three dimensions of Religion (Al-Din). So insha’Allah that’s what we’re trying to do here. There’s many various methodologies of the murāqabah. We have chosen a very basic, universal and inclusive form of this practice, without the need of any kind of special authorization from a specific spiritual school (as it concerns muraqaba)--apart from a general connection to what we do in this space of the Zawiya. It's fascinating to know that all of the above regarding muraqaba, is a natural consequence of the teachings of Islam on iḥsān, that we even have in the Prophet’s very words, an exact description of the state of being, the intention, and even a method for the murāqabah. For spiritual excellence. Glory Be to God!

Welcome back to the murāqabah workshop, which we try to do about once a month, sometimes more than that, for some of you. I pray you are actually practicing this regularly. If you’re not, that’s okay. But it would be for your own benefit to actually practice this regularly. Those who are, I’m sure you’re picking up on some of the nuances of the practice as it concerns awareness of self and the different levels of your self and being. You’re beginning to see your “self” more. You’re beginning to sense some of your own tendencies, what arises in you, and perhaps what distracts your attention from the practice of simply being consciously present before the Divine Presence, in your Heart. As you do more of the murāqabah, which can be called in English, Islamic meditation, your sensitivity to cultivating and maintaining a presence of heart (hudhur al-qalb) with God will increase as you begin to appreciate its value in your life. With God's Permission (Bi-idhniLlah).

Now, one can see that murāqabah, as a word, itself suggests the very method of the meditation. So let me explain that briefly again for some of the Friends who are new, and as a general reminder, insha’Allah. Basically, murāqabah comes from the root lettering rā-qa-bah (from a root r-q-b), which also forms  a Name of God pronounced al-Raqīb. Al-Raqīb in Arabic, means God as Lovingly ever-watchful of His servants. So to practice or be in a state of murāqabah is to connect with God’s presence through one's heart, or to have “presence of heart” with God.  Muraqaba is ultimately to “practice the presence of God”, to borrow a term from a Christian Saint. So murāqabah is the art and the skill of actually becoming more aware of God’s awareness of you. And that’s all it is. So in a nutshell, you can define or understand murāqabah exactly like that. In other words, murāqabah in general means vigilant awareness. But what it is, is an awareness from the human side of God’s awareness of us, which in Reality is ever and omni-present. 

In a sense, you can already see in that sentence above, stages, actually, of what murāqabah is as a practice. In its practice, there’s first a stage of self-awareness. You become aware of yourself, your physical surroundings, of space, and your body—and then you go a bit more subtle. You become aware of the subtle objects that may be arising, not just objects "outside" in our physical experience, but the more subtle objects of your “internal” experience. These can be identified as your feeling-states, your thoughts, your emotions, your memories. You become more aware of these as objects that arise in you, as you practice the muraqaba meditation. Now, as you become more aware of that, you perhaps begin recognize that there is something in you or as you that is aware of these things. That “witnessing sense” becomes more cultivated through the practice of muraqabah. It could also be called “the inner witness” or “the witnessing presence”. That sense “in” you is able to perceive and witness and be aware of “objects” which arise in and through you, whether they’re physical objects "outside" of you or they’re more subtle internal objects that arise "inside" of your consciousness. 

At some point in the meditative practice, what may happen in the murāqabah is that, with God’s Permission and Grace, you may sink even a little bit deeper into your practice. The sinking in (or synching in), may allow you to appreciate your inner witness. This "witnessing presence" that is able to differentiate itself as a witness from the objects that arise, "inside" and "outside" of you, may begin to view itself as your real center of consciousness and being. When this kind of shift of conscious awareness begins to occur, one may notice that the distinction between what is outside our body and the which is inside it (such as more subtle objects as thought or feelings), is seen as more arbitrary than real. When our consciousness identified itself more as a body with an outside and an inside, the distinction was real and valid. However, when the witnessing presence appears to subtly encompass the physical sense of the body and its distinctions in space, the prior distinctions of "out" and "in" when compared to the body, begin to collapse a bit, and reveal themselves as more apparent and less real. In other words, this subtlety of sinking in a little bit more, during the practice of muraqaba, leads us to see more clearly how the "inner witness" is independent of the body, and actually encompasses the sense of our body which appears to "hold" in and protect our inner consciousness.  It’s no longer this major line of demarcation, of feeling, that there’s something outside of "me" or inside of "me" that is “arising” or that I as a body am “feeling” or “sensing”. Ask yourself, what is making that distinction? What is making the distinction is precisely a consciousness that believes it’s inside of a physical object that would be the body. So it’s a consciousness inside of a body, a physical body, that believes it’s making this distinction between that which is outside of itself and that which is more inside, and yet through the meditative practice, I am able to view or witness that “entity” and encompass it from "behind" it, as it were.

Once that definitively occurs, in a manner that one abides in that mode of consciousness more and more in the practice, one may find that mode of consciousness, or that level of awareness, takes more of a center stage in one’s meditative practice.  The presumptions or the assumed beliefs that "I am this body" and "I am physically in this world of space", in the manner that I usually believe, a belief that the soul is inside “me” the body, gives way to an existential recognition that, in a dramatic way: “wait a second, no! Everything, including the sense of my physical body, is actually inside of the soul, or rather inside of the Spirit, or rather, inside of 'me', in the form or modality of my conscious-aware presence!"

On the one hand, the Spirit is embodied by the physical body. On another hand, the Spirit and its vision, its consciousness, and its presence, embodies or encompasses all of this “outward realm of physical witnessing” (alam as-shahada). In this sense, one appreciates and even verifies Islamic teachings regarding the Spirit's transcendence of the physical realm, through meditative experience. Once one sinks more into that kind of level of consciousness and witnessing through the practice of muraqabah, one may appreciate more and more what is called in traditional Sufism, spiritual witnessing—witnessing for example the attributes of God and His actions encompassing everything, as the Divine presence. As a result of the practice, there is this shift in recognizing the center and source of our attention, our Heart, more as the Divine presence, and less as the ego-self, as shift that begins to awaken more and more and dominate our center of consciousness and being.  

In other words, and to use Islamic terminology, as you engage this meditative practice more and more, you may sense that your Spirit (Ruh) becomes more liberated or released (tajrid) from its entanglement to the body-mind, or what we call the ego-self (nafs). This is a process that at the beginning one barely tastes, for it’s not something that one can easily attain. This is obviously something very subtle. Such a tasting (dhawq) is also given by the permission of God, often preceded by constant practice. One has to have some qualifications and be somewhat prepared on some level, within the proper context and spiritual framework for such a Grace . But ultimately it’s by the mercy of God. Such a tasting is also entirely natural, and verified by direct experience of the practice. The more we’re able to sink into our essential nature, into our Heart, which is actually always witnessing us, the more we surrender ourselves and let go of the perceptions of who or what we really believe we are. The more we are able to do this in the practice, the more we are able to resign ourselves to this greater conscious awareness, the height of what we would call taqwá of Allah swt, or having conscious aware presence of God. So your conscious aware presence of God in a sense, surrenders or falls into, or merges with the ever-present awareness of God found in and as your Heart. For it is God’s awareness as His pure Being that holds all of existence together and allows it to actually exist. It is in this sense that we borrow from God’s existence (wujud), and make it into an autonomous, seperate selfhood. 

So in spiritual practices of meditation, Dhikr, Salat, etc, if we’re able to sink in, and in a sense surrender ourselves to God, we may be able abide in our Heart through which is found God's Intimate Presence. Through the practice, we can touch that eternal presence connected with God, in some mysterious way. This is what some of the classical Sufis call al-ḥaqq al-awwal, the first/original realization. This term, based off of Qur’anic terminology, refers to how every human soul was asked by God to recognize and witness Him as our Lord in a kind of spiritually rhetorical fashion. That knowledge of witnessing God, a kind of gnosis or knowing of God by direct experience, is embedded in the very substance of the Spirit or consciousness of the human soul. 

Now, every human heart has its own innate capacity to reflect that knowledge, to be that knowledge, and to be that awareness. Islam recognizes this innate  and potential spiritual capacity of the human heart in a very universal sense, which encompasses all of humanity (and not only Muslims). Some may have a much more vast capacity. Some may be given the religious and spiritual circumstances to realize their innate capacity in this lifetime, and live it their fullest. These are whome various religious and wisdom traditions term “saints,” or “sages”. And the highest among them are of course the Prophets of Islam, who attained the highest spiritual states, but also received revelation to actually guide others. On a lower level, spiritual masters may receive inspirations to help others or to guide others as well, but as spiritual teachers, not as prophets bringing a whole revelation, and thereby a whole civilization. 

And so the murāqabah is one form of Islamic spiritual practice that allows us to sink in and touch this holy space, moment and state, which is our true original nature (fitrah). Muraqabah is a process which allows us to attempt to abide in Heart, by identifying more and more with this mode of consciousness, this witnessing aware presence, and to let go of our identifications and our attachments to certain objects that we attach ourselves to, whether those are physical objects or more subtle objects like a sense of status or accomplishment or achievement, or whatever we put out there that is our goal and orientation in our personal lives. All those “things” we encounter, when our attention is distracted in the practice, are also objects that arise in our awareness and catch our attention, even the most subtle of objects among them. Islamic spirituality, Sufism, even all kinds of spirituality, teaches us to be purely present, and have presence of heart, in some way, or form. And that is what Islam calls “sincerity,” to be sincerely focused and oriented towards God’s Presence in our very doing of things, and ultimately in our very being. That’s what Islamic spirituality’s about

And so this cultivating of the witnessing presence is really what murāqabah is about. As a practice, you’re just kind of sitting, and you’re being present, and you’re sinking in, and you’re connecting with God’s Presence, and becoming more aware of God’s Awareness of us, through the attentive support of the breath. By focusing our attention on the sensing or “feeling-sense” of the breath, we are able to go inward and sink “deeper” into our true being. This is one modality of it, of cultivating that witnessing spiritual presence. Another modality is to observe your self a lot more consciously, but a lot more neutrally. This is what we call muḥāsabah, which we’ve spoken about in other contexts. To observe yourself more consciously and try to become aware of what you’re doing, your habits and tendencies. You can see how both of these go hand in hand. If you don’t touch that witnessing presence enough through the practice of muraqabah, you cannot call to witness what you are observing and stand as that witness in your heart through a practice of self inquiry or introspection, termed muhasaba. You can’t do that if you are unable to touch and embrace your spiritual heart enough through murāqabah. So the murāqabah and the muḥāsabah--murāqabah being vigilant practices of self awareness, or vigilant awareness, and muḥāsabah, the practices of self-introspection—go hand in hand. 

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