Question: What is the difference between prayer and meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: When I pray to God most sincerely, immediately my inmost cry reaches high, higher, highest. And who listens? God. When I pray, I am the talker and God is the listener. But when I meditate, I open my heart, widen my consciousness and allow God to enter into me. At that time God talks and I listen.

If you pray most soulfully, you will feel that a current is flowing from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head. Praying to God is like reaching upward, or climbing up to the topmost bough of a tall tree. While you are climbing, God is observing you. While you are praying to God, you can feel that God is listening to you.

When you meditate, if you keep your mind calm and quiet, you will hear a voice from deep within. In the beginning that voice will be very faint. But when your meditation becomes profound, the voice becomes clear and distinct. At that time, God is talking to you.

When you pray with utmost aspiration and devotion, your intense inner cry is your way of speaking to God. You start your conversation with God through prayer. Then God gives you the capacity to make your mind calm, quiet, tranquil and vacant so that during your most soulful meditation you can hear His Voice.

Unfortunately, in the West prayer is not given the same importance that it was once given. We Indian Masters in a sense are the culprits. We always speak of meditation, meditation, meditation, so the Westerners who follow Indian teachers have begun to ignore prayer. But both prayer and meditation are significant ways of communing with God. If you pray most soulfully and devotedly, your prayer can take you to the highest pinnacle, the Lord Supreme.