人知其神而神，不知不神而所以神也。
“People know that the spirit is mysterious,
but don’t know that what is not mysterious is really spiritual.” – Yellow Emperor Yin Fu Jing.
People who study Daoism are often exposed to Chinese concepts of mystery. The story of Daoism has many deities, ghosts, demons, people who have ascended to immortality, and other mysterious conceptualizations of paranormal phenomenon. These various stories and concepts are all worth studying and understanding, but when it comes to cultivating yourself and becoming more enlightened, the best thing we can do is to view mysterious spiritual phenomenon as unimportant and instead focus on developing the spirit within ourselves. This spirit is represented by the mind and is made up of both natural consciousness and feeling. It is the consciousness that leads to our perceptual faculties, but it is also the consciousness that can be refined in silence and transformed into spiritual energy.
One of the biggest issues in achieving success in meditation is to not be carried away by mysterious results which occur during meditation practice. Sometimes during meditation, t is possible to have experiences such as seeing bright lights, hearing thunder crashing, seeing images in the mind’s eye, and much more, but these experiences are only manifestations of practice and they really don’t have any meaning in terms of the broader goals of meditation practices. The broader goals of meditation are first to become physically and emotionally healthy, and then to develop a strong internal energy to protect the stability you have already achieved, and later to begin to realize the true nature of self and the universe. All of these goals are simple, healthy and plain, they do not require you to do anything special or mysterious other than simply being present during the process of meditation and understand how to properly meditate.
It is important to recognize that meditation is based on changing silence into movement and non action into action, so the most important aspect of meditation is to attain a quiet mind and then return to quiet. Become calm and then return to calm. Being grounded in this way means that if you do encounter unusual spiritual experiences, you will not be moved by them and they will have no special meaning other than the mere fact that they occurred.
Daoists are trying to achieve a state of pure positive energy and non interference, so even though there are many types of spiritual and mysterious ideas and practices in Daoism, it is generally agreed that it is better to spend your time cultivating the foundations of quiet and clarity, so that when you begin to build real spiritual energy, your mind will be ready and you will progress more smoothly.