system
A chat on 4chan
human
In meditation you are observing your own mind, developing greater awareness and mindfulness of the workings of your own mind. Prayer is literally just having a conversation with god and using your will to worship god, ask God to act etc. Not as introspective. Also prayer can't really remove defilements as you need stillness and absence on thoughts/chatter to see the defilements in your heart.
gpt
you can reach this state with prayer but it's slow and unpredictable and only implicitly achievable through practice. meditation is also gradual but more explicitly able to achieve jhana. it is best to view prayer as a kind of meditation rather than being dichotomous to it. personally i do both and they both provide benefits towards one understanding.