Is it normal to sometimes be very involved in prayer while sometimes it feels like a formality?

Huzoor (rh): No, it’s just the same, whether it’s the spiritual food or material food, there are days, off days and on days and you get some more, you know, personal involvement sometimes and sometimes it is just an objective thing, so these things go on happening. They also add what you call lazat, because they break the monotony, you can’t have lazat continuously, you have to recharge, your internal batteries are being recharged during the days when you don’t get some lazat, you know, that pleasure you want to derive, it’s not for the man to derive pleasure all the time, in every situation, in every season, so Allah changes, you know,

وَتِلۡکَ الۡاَیَّامُ نُدَاوِلُہَا بَیۡنَ النَّاسِ ۚ

(3:131). The days keep changing, there is hot summer and extremely severe winter as well and the weather is changing in between and good climate and bad and sunny days and cloudy days, all these things add to life’s pleasure, add variety and in between the two moods, there are also no man’s lands, when you are just blank and you don’t feel anything at all, so this is life, but watch for it, if the trend is reversed, if the trend is from getting more and more pleasure in prayer, then you are on the safe grounds, but if the trend reverses and gradually you get less and less pleasure in the prayer and more in the state when you are not praying, then perhaps it could be a dangerous trend and listen to the ringing bell then.