Derek Thompson

The entire family was there.

It was amazing.

And we all ate together.

And I asked him the same question of how does one pray if you have uncertainty about God?

And I have to admit, he didn't exactly get the question.

He said, well, you must have been raised improperly, that your parents didn't teach you about God properly.

I said, no, no, no, but what if you have doubts?

And so it didn't register for him.

So I kind of moved on.

And what I learned from the imam was also applicable to anyone, whether you have a faith in the supernatural or not, is that he said, look, Islam is a simple religion.

We say the same prayer five times a day.

And he pointed me to a Hadith that actually talks about how the religion is designed.

It should be a simple religion to adhere to.

And that simple practice of five times a day reminding yourself about your principles, about your values, about recentering yourself, that's something I now do.

So I have these phrases, these mantras, these secular prayers that I say throughout the day that remind me

how to get through difficulty, how to be more patient, how to be more of the person I want to become.

So that's what I took from Islam.

Then I went to visit the Swami, and the Swami told me about how we should not think of God as a cosmic slot machine, giving us things, giving us money, giving us health, giving us things that we want, but rather as using prayer as a way to look inside yourself.

as a way to problem solve.

And it turns out that there's quite a bit of literature around how the power of prayer is a time for reflection to solve problems.