[9TWSg835]

Insha'Allah I will try this. Can you or anyone else also recommend any other 'exercises' that can be done to improve prescence of heart with Allah Ta'ala?

The best exercise is Muraqabah. Take out some time to sit and do muraqabah. Turn your attention towards your heart and imagine it doing Allah Allah. The more you do it, the more your presence of heart will improve. Another thing is called 'wuqoof e qalbi'. All day imagine that Allah is watching you. Whenever your attention turns away bring it back.

I generally try to do dhikr, but it's not very organised i.e. do it whenever it occurs to me - usually on my way to/back from work etc. Also I repeat the various adhkar somewhat mechanically without much thought, so I was wondering whether there is any benefit in that? Zikr of Allah is not without benefit. You will get the reward But mechanical zikr will not bring your heart closer to Allah.

Also at times I find myself paying more attention to keeping count of the number of tasbeeh , salawat etc. and have often wondered whether there is any benefit in keeping count. For example I might want to do 1000 salawat, but sometimes I feel 'reluctant' to do it when I am doing something else that will prevent me of counting at the same time, so I end up doing it only when I am able to count.

Therefore I wanted to know if it is ok to recite salawat/dhikr etc. without counting as that is quite easy to do even while working.

Sorry for all the questions.

It is okay to do without counting. But please take out some time like 10 mins to do some zikr with complete concentration. In the beginning you wont be able to do it. You will get alot of thoughts. But slowly you wll develop concentration inshaAllah.