Only eyes washed by tears can see clearly.
My feeling is that drugs and alcohol take away from the pure experience of meditation. That does not mean that occasionally, a person couldn't have a glass of wine or a drink.
The balance and patience factors are much more critical in surfing than they are in snowboarding. . . if you're out surfing serious waves and you wipe out, you don't land on soft snow. It's usually either very sharp coral, or you get raked across the beach gravel and sand while you're tumbling underwater.
As the kundalini energy increases, as the energy of the psyche becomes more pronounced, which it does as thought becomes eclipsed by silence, all the variant mind states burn away.
Energy is gained by giving energy. When we give energy, we gain energy. This is different than having someone manipulate you and take your energy.
The Winter Solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time -- a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken.
Samadhi is not going to take away your humanity. It will give it to you. You will become more cosmopolitan, more conscious, and more infinite.
It is obvious to any observer that in every western country the increase of importance of public schools has been at least coincident with the relaxation of older family ties.
It's hardly in a body's pow'r,To keep, at times, frae being sour.
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laugh'd And all the hills echoed
Theres a fear that grasps each individual and what they think is right and what they think is wrong.