Prayer over Meditation?

This from a reader:

As a theist who meditates, would you prioritize prayer over meditation or vice versa? For example, I'm a theist; I like to run, meditate, and pray before work every day. If crammed for time, would you say that one or two are more worthwhile or more important, or that its just a matter of preference?

Also I'm using Sam Harris' Waking Up app to meditate. I generally like it but he is unrelentingly determined to get listeners to realize the illusion of the self. Would you recommend using a different resource? The app just helps me stay consistent.

One difference between prayer and meditation is that prayer can be performed instantly by the invocation of a divine name -- Lord! -- or very quickly by the use of a short phrase such as 'Lord, give us light!' or by the use of the Jesus Prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' Of course, one can repeat the Jesus Prayer as a sort of Christian mantram.  If one does that, then one is engaging in a form of meditation especially if one whittles the phrase down to one word in order to achieve mental onepointedness.

Meditation, on the other hand, takes much more time: location, posture, breath, and the control of thoughts.  Reining in the wild horse of the mind  might consume twenty minutes or more. One can pray in any place, in any posture, and in any mental state and in any bodily condition, even under torture.  Jesus prayed on the cross.  Not so with meditation.  So if you are pressed for time you can always pray.

Which is more important, prayer or meditation? The answer depends on what exactly is meant by these terms and what your final metaphysics is. Here, as elsewhere, terminology is fluid and a source of misunderstanding. As I understand prayer it always involves the I-Thou relation and the duality of creature and Creator. To pray is to presuppose that there is Someone who hears and can answer prayers. In petitionary prayer one addresses a petition to another Person. One asks for a mundane or spiritual benefit for oneself or for another.  Inner listening, too, is a kind of prayer in which the I-Thou polarity is preserved.  This listening is a kind of obeying. To hear the Word of God is to obey the Word of God.  Horchen (hear, hearken), gehorchen, Gehorsam (obedience).

Meditation is an excellent propadeutic to prayer as inner listening because one cannot listen unless one is in a quiescent and receptive state.  Mental quiet is the proximate goal of meditation. It is good in itself but it is also good for inner listening.  No theology is required for meditation up to the point of mental quiet, but once it is achieved one can bring one's Judeo-Christian theology into it.

In classical Western theism as I understand it, Duality always has the last word and is never superseded or aufgehoben.  The individual soul is never absorbed into the Godhead.  The Eastern systems, by contrast, tend toward Ultimate Monism.  "I am the eternal Atman."  The Self of all things is who I am at bottom, and one can realize through meditation the ultimate identity of the individual self (jivatman) and the eternal Atman = Brahman).   How this differs from the nirvanic obliteration of the individual self in Buddhism is a matter of dispute. Early Pali Buddhism with its anatta/anatman doctrine denies that there is any self at all, little or big. The ego or I is accordingly an illusion and the goal of meditation is to penetrate this illusion.  

To answer your question, prayer is more important for a convinced orthodox Christian than meditation.

I avoid all electronics early in the morning before and during prayer and meditation. They have absolutely no place there.

As for Sam Harris, see Sam Harris on Rational Mysticism and Whether the Self is an Illusion.

Comments

[Kevin]

Very helpful; thank you.
Thinking through my goals helps me to maintain consistency. You've helped me see the flaws in the anatta doctrine. If mental quiet is a better proximate goal than is "insight" would you say that "mental quiet" is an end unto itself, or rather a healthy preamble to clearer thinking, or greater receptivity, or emtional regulation?

[Ron Krumpos]

Prayer is usually talking to God. Mystical prayer is listening to God.

When you listen you learn. When you talk you don't learn very much.

[BV]

You're welcome, Kevin

>>would you say that "mental quiet" is an end unto itself, or rather a healthy preamble to clearer thinking, or greater receptivity, or emtional regulation?<<

I would say that mental quiet is both an end in itself -- blissful as it can be -- and a preamble to the things you mention.

See my Meditation and Spiritual Exercises categories for much more on all of this.

[Kevin]

Regarding the avoidance of electronics, do you think there is a problem with the use of ones phone solely as a timer, to avoid clock watching?

[BV]

No, if you can keep from checking your messages, etc. I use a clock, but I don't 'watch it.'