Taoist

Regarding the dark side of meditation I would have to say that in my experience most of that is a by product of unrestrained obsession over the goal instead of the practice. Yet I would also have to say from my experience that these dark experiences are practically unavoidable for someone that sets themselves out with even the slightest inkling of approaching some great goal with the practice. Long story short. Life is a razor's edge no matter which angle it is approached from.

That guy was just angry that his mind moves about too much to ever derive any deep experience from Mindfulness Meditation. So it became important to turn his first love of gathering information into a holy act since he couldn't bring himself to an appreciable level of stillness. Not trying to come down on him in particular as I see myself coming from such a know-it-all mentality whenever I am mentally trying to conjure up a feeling of validity within my own conscious experience. Nevertheless, I have to agree with him in that Mindfulness Meditation is not the universal panacea. I would say that even the Awakened State that Mindfulness Meditation is pointing towards is not the universal panacea but the end of the need for one. I also agree that the Western Mystery Traditions offer a great bounty of understanding when it comes to learning about and deriving insight into the nature of Mind. For me the usefulness of the tool comes down to the skill of the artisan every time.

Just found a very interesting discussion on here this morning regarding Egyptian Symbolism and decided that I would love to have more access to discussions like such. I really appreciated the insightful angle from which the symbolism was being viewed. Seems like a wonderful place to glean some rays of timeless light from and maybe even transmit a little. Hope you are all wonderful! Thank You for allowing me to join your conversation.