Steve, I'm only partially convinced.
The core of this spiritual practice is 'grinding'. The tedious and repetitive (to most people) routine of sitting and practicing the techniques, HS, OM, kryia, then concentrating on the spiritual eye and on God without nothing happening (usually, barring a few occasions).
We may apply some limited creativity to enhance our routine but that's it.
There is a sense of satisfaction after meditation, deriving from teh fact that you have been able to impose your will to the body and have it stay still. Deeper achievements elude most devotees for years or lives.
One reason why the devotees of this path are few and scattered around.
i sincerely apologize to you if I am acting like I know. What i am about to say are only personal observations.
What i find about myself and others is that we are spiritually dead. We r the gratefull dead. I say this because we have been living externally for so many lifetimes that we cannot even recognize the sweet sanities of spiritual awakening within us and without us as they occur. Yet in our memory bank most of us can recall moments of awakening and/or miraculous occurances that inspired us to have faith thru our lives to continue in our practice. We are also challenged to use our creativity to see beyond the grind and find the joy of giving without always getting.
In our lives we constantly use our creative imagination to acquire those things in the world we would like to have. It takes us sometime to use are creative imagination in our practice to visualize spiritual awakening in all aspects of our life and particularly in our spiritual routine we do everyday. At first we may not experience peace while meditating, or see the spiritual eye, the prana energy in the body temple, the chakras, the breath slowing down, the thoughts at peace etc. The techniques help us do this.
Still once we do experience something from spirit our faith is increased and we have to redirect our creative imagination from the world to our spiritual practice and visualize some of these spiritual experiences that the Masters tell us exist. Otherwise we will always visualize material desires and there hopeful manifestation.
I believe that since we have looked for rewards and found many dissapointments in the external world for lifetimes,
we continually find them now. Yet even thru this density of understanding we are inundated with spiritual blessings. They come thru nature, thru friends and thru the most unusual aquaintances and thru unusual destined events. God is not at all limited by our material consciousness but is able to shine even thru the dark corners of our minds with perceptions of understanding and an expanding mind and opening hearts. Even in the humility of a seeker admitting his lack of spiritual awakening i see a humbleness and determined ability that is given to me as an example to emulate. Thanks mccoy for being one of "those few and scattered devotees" who continue to show me Master is with me in my efforts. One important 'creative imagination' i have recently put into practice lately is this: he/she is with me. Most of us believe this but how real is it to us?
Steve