We’ve all been there. You’re happily praying, getting yourself to do the ultimate good self-improvement deed designed for your spiritual elevation and before you know it… you suddenly wake up in the middle of the prayer to realise that your mind has been wandering.
“No problem”, you think to yourself. “I’m aware now and can re-focus my mind on God’s Magnificent Presence”. The only trouble is, you’re going into sujood (the full prostration position), and for the life of you, you can’t remember whether this is the 3rd rakah (meaning you should stand up after lifting your head off the ground), or the 4th rakah (meaning it’s time to remain seated and finish the prayer).
What’s really embarrassing is when this happens and you’re leading a big congregation of people who are all praying behind you. Yikes!
This can lead to the “Mufti In My Mind” having a field day:
“And you’re supposed to be the Presence Guy? What the heck is wrong with you?! Are you such a bad Muslim, you can’t even concentrate for the 4 minutes of a fard prayer… or is it that you have such a terrible memory?! Why even bother praying if you have such little focus? Loser! Your iman (faith) must be at such a low level right now. Maybe you do need those extra rakahs – too bad they don’t count!”
When you listen to that guy, what started as a spiritual upgrade can very quickly descend into a nafs-sabotage-extravaganza.
I’ve had this problem more times than I’d like to admit. And I can all-but-guarantee that by the time you’re done with this article, you’ll know how to fix it – forever.
How Most People Try To Fix This
For most of my life, whenever I’d have this problem, I would beat myself up a little (or a lot) and then eventually come up with the solution: try harder. (Ah, what a brilliant solution. Flawless. Certain to work – I wish I thought of it sooner…)
In the next prayer, I would try really hard to keep track of which rakah I was on and really concentrate. Sometimes, it would actually work. But sooner or later, my mind would begin to wonder and then… ‘Boom!’ I’ve travelled through the cycles of the prayer and completely lost my place. Again.
Rinse and repeat.
The reason simply ‘trying harder’ doesn’t work very well is because it ignores the real reason why we lose our place: the mind wanders.
When the mind goes away from what it’s doing and indulges in thoughts of the past or future, things that could have been and wishes that may never come true, the prayer happens quite literally, unconsciously. We are not conscious of the words and movements of the prayer, let alone the One we’re standing in front of.
More Presence Doesn’t Always Fix It
Around twenty years ago, upon reading works by the Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh and Oprah’s spiritual advisor, Eckhart Tolle, I had an epiphany:
Presence!
I discovered that I could become present at will and through training, I could stay in that state for longer and longer periods of time. I later connected the dots that this is, indeed, the essence of worship and Zikr Allah (bringing God to mind). The most shocking revelation was how training myself in presence dramatically improved the quality of my prayers.
Unfortunately, despite having far more concentration and presence in my prayers, I would still occasionally completely blank out on which Rakah I was on. Sometimes this even happened when I was completely present and getting high on feelings of love and gratitude during the prayer.
The reason is that presence does not necessarily equal focus. In fact, a person can be fully present, but not focused at all on the words of the prayer. They could be focused, for example, on the cleanliness of the fresh air as they’re breathing, or the energy they feel in their body. Or, perhaps they are so focused on the words of the prayer that they have a revelation of new meaning – and one can get so swept away in these new meanings and insights, that as the prayer continues… you actually lose track of which cycle you’re on.
This brings us to another important point:
The Best Muslims Can Still Lose Track
People often think that losing track of which rakah you’re on means that you’re a bad Muslim, with low iman (faith) and are completely distracted from God. That may be true for some people. The question is: what are you distracted by?
The highest consciousness Muslims may still (without knowing the ‘prayer trick’ I’m going to show you) lose track of the rakah they’re on because their thoughts are distracted by Allah’s indescribable Beauty. Or they can literally feel the energy of Allah’s loving kindness being poured upon them as they pray and it sweeps them away. Sometimes new insight into Quran verses may enlighten them, but still take their minds out of awareness of the repetitive actions of the prayer. Above all, they may be so engrossed in loving Allah, so fully immersed in gratitude, that they actually forget where they were in the prayer.
This is exactly why the Prophet, peace & blessings upon him, gave us a formula for correcting the prayer at the end if we make a mistake. These innocent mistakes happen to sinners and saints alike. It has little to do with your level of iman (faith) or taqwa (consciousness).
The Trick To Never Forgetting Which Rakah You’re On
This is extremely simple, but extremely effective. First I’ll explain exactly how to do the trick, then I’ll share some bonus benefits of doing this during your prayers and answer some common questions.
The Method:
- The next time you stand on the prayer mat, decide you’re going to implement this ‘trick’.
- During the first rakah, let’s assume you’re folding your arms and resting your hands somewhere on your mid-section (I’ll let my inner-Maliki silently observe, for now). As your hands are resting on each other, use slightly more pressure and push down ever-so-slightly with your index finger of both your right and your left hand.
- Keep your index finger (or ‘pointy finger’ as my kids call it) pressing down all the way until the bowing position (ruku’).
- When your hands are on your knees, again use slightly more ‘pressing down’ pressure with your index finger. Do this all the way through Cycle (Rakah) Number One, in each position, including standing straight with your arms by your side, full sujood (prostration), sitting briefly, until you finally stand for the second rakah.
- For the second rakah, do the same, but this time with your middle finger, representing the number ‘2’. For the third rakah (you guessed it…) do the same with your ring finger all the way through and for the 4th and final rakah, your pinky finger.
Simple, right?
You’re literally keeping count with your fingers, so you never lose track of which rakah you’re on. You’ll find that even if your mind wonders, as soon as your attention returns to what you’re doing, one of your fingers will be firmly pressing down more than the others – clearly indicating which rakah you’re on.
Additional Benefits Of This Method
There are some added benefits to doing this that you may find further enhance the quality of your prayers.
By deliberately paying a small amount of attention to a part of your body (your finger, in this case), you’ve automatically accessed one of the doorways to Presence. In other words, your mind is far less likely to start wandering aimlessly, when your attention is even slightly in your body. That’s because your body, like your breath, is always in the real-world. It’s always present. Any time you want to be present, if you return your attention to any part of your body, you’ll notice that the mind instantly stops wandering into the past or future or dream-land and returns to the Now.
Allah exists in the Present, in Reality, in the Now, not in the fantasy land in your head. Any time you return to the present moment, you clear your mind and increase the likelihood that you can become deeply aware of Allah’s Infinite Presence.
Given that the first inner requisite of an acceptable prayer is ‘presence’, or ‘hudur al qalb’ (presence of heart) as al-Ghazali puts it, this simply finger-trick actually enhances your overall prayer concentration level.
A Few Concerns From Over-Thinkers
Some may argue that your attention should only be on Allah and the words of the Quran, not on counting. If that were true, the same could be said for having a small amount of your attention on counting in your mind. If you’re keeping mental track of where you are in the prayer, there must be at least a small amount of your attention on the worldly, physical aspect of the prayer – specifically, where you are up to.
This ‘trick’ is simply a physical way of doing it that doesn’t depend on staying fully present the whole time and keeping a mental note of the prayer cycle number.
Others may worry that they’ll forget to do this trick altogether. Obviously, if you don’t do it at all, it won’t work. However, I’ve found it’s pretty simple to remember and after a couple of times practising and experiencing the benefits, it becomes a natural part of the prayer. It’s far easier to remember to implement this trick than it is to mentally keep track of each rakah through the prayer.
Some may wonder if this technique is some kind of “bid’a” (innovation). I don’t really see how that’s possible. You’re not changing anything perceptible in the prayer. No-one can look at you and notice that you’re keeping a physical count of the rakah number. Many people stand slightly differently from others, as is natural for them. For example, some people stand with their toes pointing to 10 o’ clock and 2 o’clock, instead of both pointing forward. Is that a “bida”?
Getting bogged down in these kinds of physical, outward details seems like majoring in the minors and missing the actual point of the prayer. I would say the benefit of praying more precisely, with less on your mind and with more certainty, flow and presence, speaks for itself.
I can safely say that, by the Grace of God, there hasn’t been a single prayer where I’ve used this method and lost track of the rakah number. I now use it in almost every prayer – certainly the ones with three to four rakahs (cycles) and whenever I’m leading. I suggest you experiment with it for yourself and see if the same is true for you.
If you’d like to know how to use the 5 daily prayers (salah) as a method for self-improvement, increasing presence and letting go of emotional hang-ups and negativity, you might enjoy this free web-class:
