The Chishti-Inayati Zikr
Make a regular and formal practice of the Chishti-Inayati zikr of our Chishti forebears inflected through the Inayati Sufi lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Study the chapter “Circling the Temple of God: The Remembrance of the Chishti-Inayati Sufis” in In the Teahouse of Experience to improve your understanding of the practice.
Maqam 1
Begin with the External Zikr and the Invocation of the Inayati-Maimuni Sufis.
Place your right hand over your heart.
Place your left hand over your right hand.
Place your right thumb over your left thumb.
Spread your fingers.
Lift your head to the sky and allow it to descend with the words, “This is not my body.”
Turn your head to your left shoulder, then allow it to loll and drift across your chest to the right shoulderwith the words, “This is the temple of the heart.”
Then recite the invocation of the Inayati Sufis . . .
Toward the One,
The Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty,
The Only Being,
United with all the Illuminated Souls
Who form the embodiment of the Master,
The Spirit of Guidance.
Maqam 2
Point your chin at your left shoulder and allow your head to loll and drift down, carried by its own weight and momentum across your chest toward your right shoulder, continuing to arc upward until your face is exposed to the heavens. As your head makes this 270-degree arc, you pronounce the words, ‘La ’ilaha,’ accompanied by the thought, ‘There is no God.’
Maqam 3
Now, allow your head to fall forward, and your chin to drop straight onto your chest, as you say, ’illa, ‘nevertheless.
Lift your chin off your chest and throw your head back, gently, so you are again facing the heavens. While making this movement, you say, llah, ‘God!’
Maqam 4
Now you allow your head to drift slowly and gently down to the left, settling over your heart, as if magnetically drawn there, as you pronounce, hu.
Maqam 5
The Chishti-Inayati zikr can be practiced silently or out loud. Out loud it is called zikr jahri. We do this pronouncing the vowels in the four parts of La ’ilaha ’illa llah with aspiration (the exhalation of breath) and a soft lion-like growl.
To keep count, we use a string of ninety-nine beads called a tesbih, or ‘tool of glorification.’ After each segment of thirty- three beads, there is a slightly different counter bead to help us keep track of where we are. The ninety-nine beads are associated with the ’asma al-husna, the ninety-nine ‘beautiful names’ of God.
Maqam 6
Taking up the tesbih, we enter into the zikr with an invocation, as we mentioned, and begin repeating La ’ilaha ’illa llah hu ninety-nine times, slowly, with reverent intention.
Maqam 7
But it is not long before you discover that the words can easily be said while your mind and attention are wandering off, far into the distance. So, to a simple recitation of the words, we need to add the ingredient of awareness—attention to the words as we are pronouncing them. We need to make it a practice to hear the words we are speaking. Not just to say them; but to hear them, as if spoken to us from without.