1) Whatever it is that you say on your tongue, that’s your zikr. Whatever you say all the time, that’s your zikr. You may be a Muslim but every day, you might say 1000 times the word money. Then that’s your zikr.

2) Whatever you say all the time, that’s your remembrance but the problem is this, whatever you say, it affects your heart. That’s why it’s not proper for a Muslim to speak vulgar words. It’s not proper for a Muslim to say those. Because why? Your heart is for Allah.

3) Allah hears all that you say and most importantly what you say affects your heart.

4) If you mention negative things all the time, it affects your heart. If you mention, the downside of things all the time, it affects your heart.

5) The Muslim is an Optimist. The Muslim is a Realist. So The Muslim is Really Optimistic. Why? Because The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said,

“Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am...’” [Sahih Al-Bukhari].

Thus, whatever you think about Allah, whatever you think about the situation, whatever you think about the stresses you are in – That’s what you are going to see. If you think negatively, if you deal with things in a rash manner, you are creating your own problem.

Whereas, if you actually stop and have a good opinion, and think good and say good, the ball is at your foot. (If you believe Allah is with you and will help you go through your hardship, He will. InshaAllah).

At the end of the day, Allah is going to do what Allah wills to do. So whatever it is that we say to ourselves, whatever opinions that we have of the world, that is how we are going to see it. That is how Allah will manifest it to us. (If we think good and believe good, InshaAllah Allah will make us see things in positive perspective, including hardships that befall us)

6) Zikr is about creating an interior reality. It’s about creating an interior landscape. It’s about creating an interior world where we are in Allah s.w.t ‘s presence as well. That’s what zikr is about.

7) Look at the bottles below. The bottles have different circumferences. Imagine that the circumference and height of the smallest bottle is able to be stretched into the shape of the 300ml bottle or 1.5L bottle but still containing 125ml of water. What does that mean? It means that the bottle now has the capacity to receive more water right? But it’s not easy to stretch the height and circumference. It requires special circumstances. Zikr is the same way.

The bottle is a symbol of our hearts and the water in the bottle represents our zikr. Right now, our hearts might be like a filled-to-the brim 125ml bottle – full capacity. So for eg, if we want to recite 100 times La ilaha illallah everyday, it might be hard because our hearts don’t have the capacity to do so. So when we make zikr everyday, when we learn to understand and appreciate zikr, our interior capacity (heart) will expand and get bigger and now we can contain more water (zikr).

And for some people, it gets so big to the extent that it can’t get bigger anymore and the water starts overflowing. And these people are viewed and described as "the People of Jannah living on Earth." How do we identify such people? You’ll see that these people, no matter what they do, their mouths are always murmuring something or seems as though they are whispering something but actually they are reciting zikr. The capacity of their hearts have reached the maximum and their remembrance of Allah (zikr) [water] starts to overflow and can be seen through their speech, their actions and so on and these are the people that would impact the lives of other people tremendously and positively. When the average person is to just look at them, he/she’ll feel the urge to emulate their actions and characteristics.