“I felt something once, years ago, and I have been chasing it ever since.”

If this is your sentence tonight, you are not the first to say it — and you are not being told anything is wrong with your iman. The tradition wrote down, in detail, what a person does about exactly this: not the theory of it, the treatment of it. Named masters, named books, numbered steps, and how long each one takes.

Two rules before any practice, and they are the tradition’s rules, not ours. First: one practice at a time, kept for two weeks, before you consider a second — the rush is the problem, not the cure. Second: do the practice and leave the result alone. Do not take your own spiritual temperature afterwards; the checking is itself a turning away.

The practices the book sends you to

• How sweetness returns Not yours to schedule
  What actually happens when it comes back, and what to do in the hour after. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Naming qabd Two minutes tonight
  Learning the classical name for the state you are in, and what it is not. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Never judging yourself by feeling Nothing added to the day
  Feeling is not the measure, and it never was — in either direction. — Section 13 — When Nothing Works
• Trusting the timing Five minutes when needed; two minutes weekly
  Istikhara before real steps, and a weekly two minutes of naming what you did not arrange. — Section 0 — Seeking a Guide
• The three answers Five minutes once, then one minute a day
  What the tradition says becomes of a dua — and the part of it you are not permitted to know. — Section 8 — Dua

Where the first one comes from

Al-Qushayri sets out the classical distinction in al-Risala: a hal — a state — descends on the heart and lifts again, and is not produced by your effort, while a maqam — a station — is what is built and kept. Sweetness belongs to the first category. Ibn ‘Ata’illah puts it more sharply in al-Hikam: sometimes He gives to you and in doing so withholds from you, and sometimes He withholds from you and in doing so gives to you. Muslim narrates that the hearts are between two of the fingers of the Most Merciful, turned as He wills.

Other sentences

• “I want to stop entirely.”
• “I do not know where to start.”
• “I feel nothing when I pray, and I have not for years.”