The more I hear the stories of other posters here, the more I feel... pedestrian.
Your search paid off in at least one (of many) ways: your obvious depth of wisdom and acceptance. The hard-earned freedom from insidiously feeling comforted by thinking "you know the answers to everything and that everything is under control by some invisible power or force, guided by some supreme spiritual leader." The kind of freedom that maybe not everyone can handle.
This forum is not easy for me because I often second guess my posts, i.e., myself, and it sometimes leaves me feeling unsettled. I smack myself down because the only thing I really know is that I don't know very much. But then someone comes out with a post like your and it's worth it because something I wrote evoked something beautiful and meaningful from someone else.
As I wrote that post about Muktananda, I was mindful of how biased I am against spiritual leaders and anything cultish or guru-ish, especially when they involve numbered dimensions. I'm quite happy accepting that that invisible power of force is unknowable, not meant to be known, not necessary to be known and certainly not the purpose of my life.
(If I really wanted to go for it, I could try to pass-off, tongue-in-cheek of course, that it's the ultimate state of enlightenment to come to that...
realization!
At least it's a heck of a lot
lighter!)
None of this is to imply that I don't stand in awe and wonder of life and everything that the beautiful things that surround me. It's just that I'm happy enough knowing that the universal laws of physics, nature and whatever are the ultimate arbiters of fairness and equal treatment.
Oh, and one more pay-off from your search: your understanding and empathy for those trapped in that in that insidious "comfort" shines through. Or maybe you were like that long before your search began.
