Buddhism suggests there are no elect. Everything rests upon your own self-effort, which is the good news because that means you don't have to wait around for some nebulous God to help you.

You must be accommodating with your teacher. You must have a sense of humor about your teacher and the impossible things they ask you to do.

Every time you sit down to meditate, you have to sit down with a resolve to win. You are going to sit there and will your mind to be happy, quiet and still.

It is a dangerous assumption to say that people who drain energy "don't know what they are doing." People are sophisticated aware beings. Don't sit around and equivocate; they'll drain you more.

Hell is everything. Heaven is nothing.

Astrologically, at that age, you experience a Saturn return. It is considered an auspicious time to "reboot" your life. It's a chance to have a clean start and move forward into something very exciting.

To meditate, you need to feel, and feeling is a lost art. You need to feel the stillness of existence and also the sound of existence. You need to feel that which lies beyond your awareness field, and that which is within it.