All this soul searching, and wanting to reach a 'higher state' or 'understanding'

watch this one minute video about the key and what is meditation about, from a kriya yoga master.

The answers will come if you are genuinely interested and do not give up on yourself. Intellectual knowledge is not important as experience so stick to meditation and intuition will be the guide if you let it. Learn a proper way to relax at the beginning of meditation like stretching, pranayama or what suits you and enjoy the moment.

a reply to: athousandlives

Each morning we start our day afresh and new.
It is a great gift we are given, as if born again.

That is the time to do a meditation and free the mind.
Without doing this, we soon lose our patience when
others interrupt our schedule or insult us in some way.
That is when we lose our freedom and give in to the
temptation to be angry, and patience flies out the
the proverbial window.

A morning meditation help prepare the mind for this
first unpleasant encounter, and helps us slow down
the mind so we can see what arises in each case.

This will lead to greater and greater patience,
so that we know what do or what to say at
that moment without reacting from the place
of our toxic emotion and psychic pain. This
is the only way to break free of habit energy.

With patience come virtue and courage.
As we grow in these three, we find we
have greater fulfillment in life. We not
only sustain joy and peace, we provide
a Light (and example) to others.

Medication is how we fill our bucket,
then we can help to fill another person's
bucket with the overflow. In doing this
we we heal the world, but must start
with healing ourselves first.