Benedictine Joan Chittister addresses the question, “What is contemplation?”

Contemplation is not the practice of saying prayers. It is the growing, overwhelming consciousness of God within and around us, before us and beyond us. It is God embedded in our souls and at the helms of our hearts. It is the awareness of God that is, as Paul says, “praying without ceasing”. . . .

Suddenly we realize that God is everywhere, is alive in our lives, is the light on the road that beckons us on.

Every major religious tradition calls us beyond forms of religion to faith in God, to depth of soul. Then, when the soul is as broad as the sky, we are ready to break down the false boundaries between peoples. We are spiritually mature enough to center ourselves on the fulfillment of the God life within us rather than simply make the things of God our gods. . . .
This is the difference between prayer and contemplation. Prayer says the words.
Contemplation understands that in the end the right words don’t matter. In contemplation we discover that there is a difference between orthodoxy and the consciousness of God in life. . . .

Contemplation. . . . goes beyond the spine or structures of a religious community, beyond its customs books or rule books or historical development to its innards, to its mystical end, to the energy that created it and drives it. The contemplative life is more than prayers or rituals or sermons. It is all of those things but more. It is about the experience of God. It is the fullness of the Tradition come to life again in us.