Are contact prayers really necessary?
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Peace be upon you Johhny K,
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Salaat is the process of programing the spirit(subconcious) in order to change your behavior to give the desired effect/outcome.JK- This is correct. Now tell me something , did u reach to this conclusion by yourself or did you get it from somebody?
I got the objective understanding of programming the subconcious from someone else, I connected it with salaat myself.
If you did then from whom? GOD Bless!
Ra Un Nefer Amen
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Peace "idolfree",
I got the objective understanding of programming the subconcious from someone else, I connected it with salaat myself.
JK- Ic, yes the latter was the point. Did you know that Dr. Zakir Naike(famous sunni scholar, debator and medical doctor) gave this very explanation of salat to mean "programming of soul" too? Who is "Ra un.."? Is he a sunni too? GOD Bless!
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Peace all,
Salat helps us to program ourselves and obey Allah by remembering Allah. All zikr (remembrance) of Allah is not salat but all salat is a special way of remembering Allah.
2014 "I am God, there is no god but Me, so serve Me and uphold the salat for My remembrance."
How does Allah's remembrance help us ? FJ summarises it in another thread and I quote
the state of remembering God keeps one from doing evil deeds and reminds one that difficult situations are only a test through which God wants to see whether we shake our belief in HIM and thus one is at peace in all situations. So this state of remembering God all the time is achieved and aided with salat, which reminds one also of the reason for being here to serve God alone by helping the poor, the needy, and all other things mentioned in the reading, which make one righteous person thus achieving the ultimate success and that is being admitted in Paradise.
Peace
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Peace be upon you Jonny K,
JK- Ic, yes the latter was the point. Did you know that Dr. Zakir Naike(famous sunni scholar, debator and medical doctor) gave this very explanation of salat to mean "programming of soul" too?
No, I did not. I would like to read more about his understanding, do you have a book or website you can foward to me?
Who is "Ra un.."? Is he a sunni too? GOD Bless!
Ra Un Nefer Amen is the King of the Ausar Auset Society, A Pan African spiritual group. No, he is not a sunni. May the God bless you as well.
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Peace be upon you Tanveer,
The rememberence of the God is attained through programming of the Nafs(subconscios/spirit/soul). What must be understood from a psychological perpective is that most of our actions in life in response to events happen AUTOMATICALLY due to conditioning we recieve throughout life. For example if you grow up seeing your parents and others responding to difficulties through anger and violence, then your subconscious REMEMBERS this and when you face the same situations, you tend to respond the same way. We must reprogram our incorrect responses to reflect correct conduct and behavior, and this is what is meant by "remembering the God".
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Idolfree, I respect what you said.
To summarize it, you claim that Salat ( contact) is different than Dua, in that Salat is a 24-hour/day, never-ending process, in which we try to tune our subconsiousness with God, which in turn will affect our actions. In short, Salat ,according to you, means that you are constantly in contact with God. Is this what you;re trying to say? Or am I wrong?
Dua ( prayer) , on the other hand , is a ritualistic form of Salat?Why does the Quran always stress the importance of dawn ( before sunrise ), and dusk ( before sunset) as the best times for dua??
Also, note that the verse which mentions the ablution, says "Itha Qumtum ila-salati" and not "itha qumtum ila-dua" confused . So if Salat is a never-ending process, how can one perform ablution before doing it??All this ( ablution / fixed times ) leads one to think that Salat CAN \assume a ritualistic form.. Dua, is in fact a kind of Salat isn't it?
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Salaam,
I read the "timings" of salat in two ways. One of them is a literal dawn and dusk, that I always use for reading and studying the quran in order to learn more and for The God's remembrance.
The other way to read the timings is that I take the "dawn" as the time when I am awake (usually during the whole day); and I take "dusk" or "night" as the time when I am only partially awake (I have to sleep during some part of the night). Thus, when Surah 73 is talking about "standing up" only a part of the night, that is because there is no way for me not to sleep at night. I need at least 5-6 hours of sleep. Thus, during the sleep, I don't do the salat simply because I am not aware. Of course, it's different if I can be totally aware in my dreams like some individuals can do.
In this sense, when Isa mentions about performing the salat as long as he lived, I take it as keeping in the state of remembering The God at all times when he was awake.
Coming back to the title of this thread, my answer is Yes, having "contact" is necessary; but whether it is through a certain form of prayer or something else, is completely personal. (In the way I read it, this "contact" through salat should happen at all times when we are awake).
=adley=
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Peace "idolfree",
No, I did not. I would like to read more about his understanding, do you have a book or website you can foward to me?
JK- Yes ofcourse
http//www.irf.net/irf/drzakirnaik/Ra Un Nefer Amen is the King of the Ausar Auset Society, A Pan African spiritual group. No, he is not a sunni. May the God bless you as well.
JK- Ok thanx. GOD Bless!
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Peace be upon you,
When I say "GOD LIKE", I am referring to the fact that the God's attributes are stated for us to manifest them through our vehicle. Go through the list of attributes and then you will understand what kind of character we are suppossed to be manifesting. It comes naturally when we PURIFY the NAFS through "salaat" (programming).
peace
very very good mashaAllah i totally can understand what your saying but the next logical question is how does one program ones conscoius so that it can automatically react in the right way?
how is the salat supposed to be performed in order to make the most of the healing and learning process?
Amanda
i get what your saying totally about the attributes of God
Amanda
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Peace be upon you Pazuzu,
Sory for the delay , I lost this thread.
Idolfree, I respect what you said.
To summarize it, you claim that Salat ( contact) is different than Dua, in that Salat is a 24-hour/day, never-ending process, in which we try to tune our subconsiousness with God, which in turn will affect our actions. In short, Salat ,according to you, means that you are constantly in contact with God. Is this what you;re trying to say? Or am I wrong?
Dua ( prayer) , on the other hand , is a ritualistic form of Salat?No, let me clarify. Dua is calling on the God at any time. If you are just having a rough day and you say "God help me", that is Dua.
Salaat however is a method of programming the Spirit(nafs) to produce change in your behavior. This is a timed proceedure. It should be done at dawn and dusk, considering that these are the times when we should be going to sleep and waking up, so basically before going to bed and after waking up. Dawn and Dusk are the times when day and night merge, and that is what our goal is in salaat, we should get ourselves into the mental state where we are between sleep and awake. This is called teh trance state and is scientifically proven to be the state of receptivity where we can have a say as to what we are receptive to, as oppossed to total sleep where the will is absent. The WILL rules the day and the subconscious rules bthe night, we want to WED these two together, thus states as "merging of day and night".
Why does the Quran always stress the importance of dawn ( before sunrise ), and dusk ( before sunset) as the best times for dua??
They are the best times for Salaat, not Dua, as explained above.
Also, note that the verse which mentions the ablution, says "Itha Qumtum ila-salati" and not "itha qumtum ila-dua" . So if Salat is a never-ending process, how can one perform ablution before doing it??
Salaat is not never ending, it is time conditioned.
All this ( ablution / fixed times ) leads one to think that Salat CAN \assume a ritualistic form.. Dua, is in fact a kind of Salat isn't it?
Dua is to help us focus, salaat is the proceedure used to make changes.
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Peace be upon you Amanda,
I wil be finishing an article soon which I will post in the salaat section.
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Salam,
the salat in the quran indicates both physical salat(contact method) and other times refers to the establishment of the ivine system(society based on quranic values) sometimes it refers to oaths of allegiance too,dependign on context.All fitting meanings should be taken and we should not chain(mahjoor) quranic meanings to one and discard others,as God's wisdom has multiple meanings in many verses and yet they all make sense andfit beautifully.Peace.