Cottoneye, it's good to reflect on concepts like prayer and meditation. But when asking the board about such matters, you should remember that they are such broad terms, wide open to subjective interpretation.
Cottoneye said:
Does the individual just need to discover what works best for them?
I think you already know the answer.
Cottoneye said:
Is channeling a type of meditation or a different state altogether?
Now this is an altogether different question! A veritable can of worms as Laura might say. What's interesting to me is that you posted your query in the PSI section of the forum. This is only a hunch, but perhaps you are seeking an experience? Like you have an idea of what meditation and/or prayer can do to a being, where it can lead them, and you want to be there and experience that too? Totally valid - me too! But. Nothing can short-circuit lessons, lessons learned through the assimilation of knowledge, so seek ye after knowledge, as they say.
Cottoneye said:
Some suggested reading material on the subjects would be greatly appreciated
Have you heard what Mouravieff and Gurdjieff had to say on the subjects? Maybe start there. I don't have their work to hand, but if you're interested I can look them up.
My own experience: I spent a long time
thinking about meditating [nothing wrong with that!] Thankfully in the summer I signed up for a Vipassana course of meditation. Amazing results - it 'works' for me. You sit there with many others in a hall, as still as you can, eyes closed, self-observing: 'watching' your thoughts pop in and out of your attention, sometimes lingering, sometimes flowing, but always changing. Vipassana supposedly translates to "seeing things as they really are", which I suppose, given that the Work here at Signs carries the same emphasis, is what attracted me to give it a go. Anyway, I'm not here to sell this 'technique' to you, just to say that by finally sitting still and 'meditating' [whatever that means!], I have now a super-neat helper for observing the machine of my psyche; a 'spiritual tool', as you might call it. Perhaps there are objective guidelines available to help discern proper or improper ways of meditating. I don't know of any. In my opinion, what is proper or improper regarding this is entirely dependent on the interaction of the observor.
I'm even more of a novice when it comes to prayer, so for now I'm not even going to comment on that!