Take the level of dedication that anyone had to get to the top in any field, and apply it to self-discovery. Except that when you get to the top of anything else, it washes away. You will die. The only thing that stays with you forever is your awareness.

Be honest! You are not going to want to admit energy loss. Someone is making it hard for you to look.

Real meditation engenders humility and purity, always. Yet I don't really think it demands any kind of lifestyle.

You have to look at your own thought forms. Are you sitting around and thinking a lot of negative thoughts? These injure the subtle body. When you hate, when you are angry, you bring that energy through you.

There is a large difference between spacing out in the lower occult astral planes, weird, junky, fuzzy energy, and meditation. Meditation is sharp, clear, precise, perfect, luminous, shiny, happy, etheric, cosmic, and dissolute.

We really have no choice in the matter. We are given a description of the world that is much more potent and much deeper than you might realize.

Love the fading flowers as much as you love the undifferentiated which lasts forever.