4.1 A Brief Look Back At The Station Of Repentance 3rd Station – Accountability:

Ask others to help you out in this station as most of us can’t really see our own mistakes and sins

Imam Al-Sadiq (‘a): “May Allah (SWT) bless the one whom gives me a gift of correcting/showing me my mistakes.”

He will be giving me a gift because it is a source of benefit for us. Encourage people to have this attitude amongst us. We have to develop ourselves when people comment on our mistakes, it is worth considering – because it allows us to identify our wrongs.

Urafa hate friends who flatter them and loves their bold enemies. Friends who flatter them aren’t friends because they don’t benefit me. The friend is the one that may seem to be our enemy for pointing bad things in us out. We need someone like this to help us out

Main reference:

"Turn ye to our Lord (in repentance) and bow to His (Will), before the Penalty comes on you: after that ye shall not be helped.” (39:54)

Say: "O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.(39:53)

Imam Ali has said: “There is no better verse than this to give heart, joy and confidence to a believer for the availability of divine mercy.”

There is one of the things in this ayah that states that all of my sins are forgiven. But are they really forgiven? – what are the conditions? We need to be aware of any of these conditions. We need to work hard to make sure that all of our sins are forgiven. These stations allows one to wipe away their sins. This station is there to complement the station of repentance. In that station one made a covenant – but this more of a verbal agreement. This station takes us that step higher in our journey:

Story of friends:

Two friends could be good together, friend one makes bad with friend two. Two says I forgive (this is like repentance – this is the most we can receive in the 2nd station, or like someone that has been discredited – and repays the due balance, but still the file is there in case) two has forgiven but he still is mindful of the injustice committed against him

After one performs repentance Allah (SWT) says you are forgiven, but that is not enough for me. One needs to delete this file altogether. This statin allows for this file to be deleted.

4.2 Introduction To The Station Of Returning Back To Allah (Swt)

There are various levels of this station:

Al A’f : (expression in Quran) you are forgiven,

Al Safh: This is deleted, forgiveness + record is removed

Al-‘inabah has a root of Al-Nooub (another name for bee returning to the hive), means to return to something frequently.

Al-‘inabah means one that return to Allah (SWT), tawbah was also return – but here it means returning in repentence and in good deeds and action. Good deeds washes away bad deeds (Quran). The emphasis is on putting it into practice.

4.3 The Three Pillars Of Returning To Allah (Swt)

Kharj Abdullah Ansari has said to get this station done you need to build 3 pillars:

1. To return to Allah (SWT) with as many good deeds as possible (in correcting ourselves). One of the best ways of doing it is to do istigfar and to stop doing what is bad. Also, we need to put in our financial analysis something called ‘Rad Al-thaleb’ in case we have been unfair to anyone. As a compensation in case we do not know whether we have committed or not committed a sin to someone (like doing backbiting or bad relations) do a good deed like paying zakat or fasting and in your intention dedicate the reward to them. The reasoning behind this is that you are seeking your just reconciliation or compensation as a form of balance in this world so that you are not punished in the hereafter.

On the other hand, if you have been treated unjustly – this is a blessing. If you can come to erasing the bad deeds that people have done to us. The more you feel hurt the more of your own sins would be forgiven. I have forgiven this person for example for the things that they have done to us. At this stage we can ask Allah (SWT) to wipe away our sins. Any of our lapsed prayers or deeds that we were supposed to do and didn’t start doing.

Remember in the station of repentance you made a promise to return to Allah (SWT). Now is the time to be loyal to the promise (not to do the action/bad deed again). This is the opportunity not to do it again – how? Urafa and Ansari suggest the following – you have to change your system of thinking. Before we do anything we should go through the following:

• Think about it, we imagine it before hand, we calculated in our mind the costs and benefits

• Make Intention about it

• Implementation

The sin sounded good, made an intention and then we went about actioning the sin.

Is there any correlation between the ringing of the bell and the mouthwatering. Pavalov the Russian physician said that there is a relation. Urafa about 1,000 years ago said that we can condition ourselves with anything. Pavalov every time he would feed the dog he would ring the bell. After a while the bell rang and the food wasn’t served, the dogs mouth was wet. This formed the ‘classical conditioning’ Humans work the same way. We can condition ourselves to see for example semi-naked women as semi-naked donkeys. If we can condition ourselves to this point then we would be far away from committing sins. What we should be doing is condition ourselves such that we see and feel the burning fire of Hell when we see and witness bad deeds or sins being committed by ourselves or being in an area where haram is being committed.

Imam Khomeini was very punctual, even the time that his son was assassinated he still turned up for class. There was a time where he didn’t turn up to class and people were wondering why not. This happened for the second day. A few people visited the Imam and he was sick in bed. What has happened? His family said that he was feverish and we don’t know why. When we sat down and asked him what happened? He said that he was in a majlis a few nights ago where he overheard someone gossiping against a Marja, this affected him so much that he became feverish. This lasted for three days.

He has gone through that much that his body was so sensitive to not only doing sin but even hearing it. What was once good in now bad – it has worked for others and can work for you. You have to rescue yourself from the pleasure of the sin. It has happened before and will happen again. Do not feel as though you are better than others. This is a plague for your good deeds. Never look down upon others – if you think they are still asleep might wake up and beat you. You whom might wake up might die still asleep spiritually. Just that you have building the good deeds you don’t have to wreck this by burning the good deeds. The bad deeds wash away the good deeds. Do not ever be proud of our good deeds. Because no one really knows whether their deeds will be accepted or not. So we should be living on a level such that we are conscious of this and not feel good and have pride when we do good and look down upon others.

You had verbal said that you repent to Allah (SWT). It is time that you practically say so. Steps to reach this is that:

You lose hope in your action. In other words, you do not see any deeds that you have done. This is so that we cannot burn our good deeds. We should not see things that we are

the source of the good deeds. When in reality everything is from Allah (SWT). He is the source of all the blessings. This is so that we turn ourselves to him in practice – this could attract more blessings from Allah (SWT). We are in so much need of Allah (SWT). The moment we come to this level and attitude we would be seeing Allah (SWT) pour a lot of blessings to us.