In my last email, I shared the most important realization that you need to have regarding your salat...

...which is that it's a real meeting with your Lord, and it's an opportunity to demonstrate how much you value your relationship and connection with Him.

Now I want to talk about some of the practicalities...

How do you start to unlock a more meaningful prayer?

Well, this is how I like to think about it...

In your salat, there are four parts of you that are praying:

1. Your body: you're either in a particular position that means and symbolizes something, or in a movement between one position and the next.

2. Your tongue: the words that you say - each of the phrases is so critical and important.

That's something which I'll elaborate on in upcoming emails as we go through this series... so that by the end of it, you'll understand the meaning and significance of the wordings that you say in salat.

3. Your mind: what are you thinking about?

Perhaps your mind is often wandering and you have distracting thoughts in prayer, but don't worry... we'll get to that in future emails.

4. Your heart: what kinds of emotions are you feeling?

Why is this important?

Because, it's when ALL FOUR of the above are aligned that you truly start to UNLOCK a meaningful prayer.

And if right now your prayer is not as meaningful as you'd like it to be, then it's because one (or more) of the above is NOT aligned.

And just like my last email, this isn't something new or groundbreaking...

When you're engaged in any kind of interaction or communication with someone else, you're automatically applying the same principles:

- Body: perhaps you're facing them, and you're making certain facial expressions and hand movements to support what you're saying

- Tongue: you're communicating words that are meaningful to you, and you're conveying a message in a way that they will understand

- Mind: you're thinking before, and as, you're speaking

- Heart: you're feeling and conveying certain emotions

And hopefully, all four of these combined make for meaningful communication and conversation between yourself and them.

And the same applies to your salat...

You want to infuse the positions, the movements and the words in your prayer with meaning and substance.

I'll close with this analogy...

You may have seen (perhaps in the movies or elsewhere) big safes which have combination locks on the front. And then you see someone who's trying to get in the safe.

They're dialing clockwise, then anti-clockwise... what's going on behind the scenes?

Mechanisms are all aligning. They're coming together.

When they fall into place, something clicks and the lever can be pulled down. The safe can be unlocked. The treasure can be found.

There is a treasure in salat. There is a delight in salat. There is a beauty in salat that you can find, and you can feel and experience it every time you pray...

...as long as you take this alignment process seriously.

And that's the process which, insha'Allah, we're going to use to guide us through the rest of this series.