[Cmt12]

People get off track because they follow their emotions. They look for a meditation technique that makes them feel better and if it does, then they decide that technique is correct.

Increasing quality of life is the end goal, but you don't get there by letting your emotions lead you. You get there by seeking truth, by connecting to your intuition and working to remove that which is disconnecting you. This requires an increasing amount of suffering.

That is the challenge: only those that are willing to listen to the soft whisper instead of loud shouting (Intuition over ego), only those that resist temptation at the expense of the real prize (resisting short term emotional impulses), only those willing to suffer and destroy parts of themselves are "worthy", only those willing to connect to faith over certainty.

If someone is willing to do what is required, then meditation technique takes care of itself. The most important thing is to not proceed down a path unless you have examined that it is true. For every step you take, you need to turn around and scrutinize it over and over looking for falsity. I've progressed because my process of accepting truth is so extensive. What I post on this forum has already been rejected many times over and has withstood the test of time. You develop a feel for intuition through experience but I've always gone above and beyond just to be sure; even when I felt comfortable accepting something as true, I was still patient. You must be PRECISE.

This is the real value in meditation - examining yourself so you can better recognize truth. The ironic thing is in this pursuit of better equipping yourself to progress in Spiritual Development, you are actually developing spiritually and walking the path. The examination is the solution.

The thing is you don't gain clarity on the entire process until you've reached the end. If Spiritual Dev is a 100 foot journey, clarity about the purpose, the procedure, or if the path even exists doesn't come until you've gone 99 feet. It's supposed to be like this, supposed to be difficult and based on faith.