tectonicfury

Show us an ascetic who would find this a walk in the park.

That's basically how they con you into it. Using pretty words which appear to have "deeper" and "transcendental" meanings. They entice you with words like mystery, truth, existence, universe, but the TLDG (Too long didn't go) of this rabbit hole called meditation is (wading in) occult practices.

Just a comment regarding belief in the context of learning: a lot (in fact almost all) of learning is through our innately held beliefs. Without having beliefs we would be no different than an ML model, which just keeps adjusting weights according to the data it receives. Each of us has some beliefs, which "seems right" to us and this is what shapes our understanding of what we see around us, no matter what the "data" says.

If the belief is weak (or false), it might lead to confusion and distrust, which will make it impossible to learn anything.

Also, experiencing heightened states of awareness is not necessarily beneficial, people on drugs experience it routinely.

As a Muslim, I pray five times a day, and of late I have begun to perform it "better", as in unshackling myself from worldly thoughts and other mental distractions. I attach zero importance to them and I remind myself that this صلاة (prayer) that I am doing alone deserves any importance, to the exclusion of all others. Thoughts used to come to me to try and induce panic in me, but overtime they have become so feeble that I am no longer aware of them.

And talking about the kings, one of the pious said : “If the kings and the children of the kings knew what [felicity] we are in, they would fight us over it with their swords.”