In our retreats, within the first paragraph of the introductory talk that I give, I talk about the words "mental development." In the Pali language, as far as I know, there actually isn't a word that means "meditation", but in the scriptures the Buddha used the Pali words "Citta bhavana." Citta means heart-mind; bhavana means development. So, he talked about mental development; he talked about it over and over and over, he talked about mental development.
Now, the question, can you purify, etc. without meditation? No, not in the way that we use the word "meditation" as "mental development", because if you don't develop your mind, you're not going to let go of fear, you're not going to let go of desire, you're not going to let go anger, or any of that. And you're not going to develop Compassion, your not going to develop Patience, or develop any of that. So, when we're thinking of "meditation" in the broad sense, as a twenty-four hour a day practice, then we're thinking of "mental development."