Many people often misunderstand when it comes to prayer and meditation. They mix both together and thought that these two practices are the same, which in fact, they are not.
If you look it up in the dictionary, you will see that prayer means, “A solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or another deity.” And meditation is defined as “Focus one’s mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation.”
Both prayer and meditation focus on the mind, but their purpose is very much different. For example, if you are a Christian, prayer involves your minds and hearts because when you pray, you are actively praising or thanking God, or asking God to act in a specific way to grant your wish or hope. On the other hand, meditation is a practice that was once used by religious people such as monks to achieve a state of calmness in their minds.
In a more simple word, a prayer is a thought sending to the God to ask for blessings while meditation is a practice of achieving a calm mind and a higher state of awareness.
Prayer can happen anywhere and at any moment. Plus, people can pray for the sick and for those less fortunate than the one praying. And in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus talks about praising God and asking for His blessing and safety. You can pray for anything you desire according to your own religion.
Meditations are getting more and more popular these days. The modern society uses meditation to achieve a quiet and peaceful state of mind to relieve stress. Of course, meditation was discovered in the Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, but today, meditation is widely practiced even among the Westerners. Most meditations require a quiet place to achieve a higher sense of spiritual awareness. Meditation usually requires the practitioner to sit in silence, focus on their breathing or thoughts, or sometimes having no thoughts at all. A popular meditation technique called mindfulness meditation is where one sits in silence and just focus on the breathing.
Although that prayer and meditation are different, there are some similarities from both. For instance, both prayer and meditation are used for good intentions and will make you a better person. Science has discovered that people who pray or meditate usually will have higher self-control, empathy to others, and reduced stress.
What truly happens when you pray or meditate is that your state of mind will change. You change your thought and feelings when you pray or meditate. As a result, your action and awareness will change and hence, your responses will change. And when you respond differently, you will start to see things differently. This is why prayer and meditation help in making us calm and feeling better.
Perhaps, one of the easiest ways to differentiate between prayer and meditation is that prayers look up while meditations look in.
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