Stop reading.
Just for one moment, become aware of your own presence. Not your thoughts about presence, but the raw fact of being here. Feel the weight of your body, the movement of breath, the aliveness in your hands.
Now – without moving from this awareness – recognize that this presence isn’t just yours. This vast space of awareness in which you are conscious of sitting and breathing… who is truly present here?
This isn’t philosophy. This is a direct doorway to taqwa.
Most of us seek God-consciousness as if Allah were somewhere else – a distant king we must constantly remember and appease. We turn it into a mental exercise, an endless self-improvement project. But Allah tells us: “We are closer to him than his jugular vein.”
The barrier isn’t distance. It’s distraction.
Your thoughts about God create the illusion of separation from what is already here. Your concepts of taqwa become a veil over the reality of taqwa. Even your efforts to be good can become an elegant form of ghaflah (heedlessness) – because all doing comes from a subtle assumption of separation.
Here’s the radical truth: Taqwa isn’t achieved. It’s revealed.
When you drop fully into presence – not thinking about presence, but being presence itself – you discover that this awareness isn’t personal. It’s vast, borderless, alive with intelligence. You discover that the space in which all experience arises is itself divine presence.
This isn’t metaphor. Right now:
- Stop strategizing about spirituality
- Rise above the stream of mental commentary
- Feel the raw reality of being here
- Notice that this presence is already aware
- Notice that this awareness isn’t “yours”
This is taqwa without path or process. Direct recognition of divine presence.
Everything else – prayers, dhikr, studies, good works – flows naturally from this recognition. But without this recognition, they can become sophisticated forms of sleep-walking.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “Worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you do not see Him, He sees you.” This isn’t instruction for imagination. It’s pointing to what’s already here when we stop looking elsewhere.
Your very consciousness is evidence of divine presence. Your ability to be aware is itself an expression of Allah’s attribute of awareness. You don’t need to create or maintain taqwa – you need only recognize whose presence you’re already in.
This isn’t a replacement for shariah or traditional practice. It’s the living heart that makes them real. Without this recognition, religion becomes mechanical. With it, every motion is dhikr, every breath is prayer.
The Quran speaks of those who “stand, sit, and lie on their sides, reflecting on the creation of the heavens and earth.” This isn’t an invitation to theological speculation. It’s pointing to the immediate recognition of divine presence in every posture, every moment.
Stop reading again.
Be still.
Be present.
Notice who is truly present here.
This is taqwa.
