meditation and prayer are both spiritual practices.ย if done rightly then both can lead to god realization.
there are many paths leading to god. one should not compare the paths. because for some people meditation is best path, for some devotion is more suited, for some people tantra or mantra is the right path. so one should choose the path which he has traveled in previous life times.
meditation and prayer both are means to reach god. but they are different from each other. although meditation is often confused with prayer. meditation is not prayer and is totally different from it. lets check few main differences.
difference between meditation and prayer:
1. in meditation there is no concept of god. for a meditator there is no god. but in prayer, you often pray to god for some favors or to thank for giving you this abundant life.
2. prayer is a method of surrendering your ego or life situations in the hand of god. whatever god offers you, you are happy with that. its a path of surrender. whereas, in meditation you don’t surrender because there is no god in meditation, then whom you will surrender your ego to?. in meditation, you go beyond the mind by understanding it mechanisms. witnessing is the method to understand the mind.
3. in prayer, you often can have conversation with god. you can talk to god. but in meditation, there is no conversation with anyone. moreover, in meditation any thought which comes to your mind has to be witnessed. so the meditator witness his thoughts as well as his emotions.
4. surrender is the method in prayer. witnessing is the method in meditation.
5. surrender will be more suited to heart oriented people or people who have lot of faith in god or who can surrender easily. meditation is suited more to people who are more into mind or like to analyze things.
meditation is one of the main practice in buddhism as well as jainism and is also followed by many enlightened mystics of india. whereas prayer is used to realize god in sufism and also in hinduism. many hindu and sufi mystics have reached via prayer.
both meditation and prayer are good spiritual practices and suits different type of aspirants. so choose the spiritual practice which suits you and be sincere in it.