Question: Is prayer necessary?

Sri Chinmoy: Prayer is necessary and meditation is necessary. However, if one becomes experienced in meditation, then prayer is not necessary. When I pray, I talk and my Father listens. When I meditate, my Father talks and I listen. There will come a time when I will not have to talk, because I will be the Supreme's conscious instrument. When I make total surrender, He will act in and through me. Once we go deeper in the spiritual life and our meditation becomes profound, we listen to God and no longer need to ask Him for anything.

Once we become His perfect instruments, He will execute His own Will in and through us. But until then, or as long as we feel that God does not care for us as much as we care for ourselves, we have to pray to be freed from ignorance and insecurity. Once we are realised, or on the verge of realisation, we see that God always knows our needs, so there is no necessity to pray for different things. We only want to surrender. When we feel that God is omnipresent and cares for us infinitely more than we care for ourselves, then prayer is not necessary because we belong to Him and we are His property. If we are His property, then we do not have a claim upon ourselves, although God will claim us as His very own.