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Nothing will derail a meditation practice more quickly and permanently than harboring a mistaken understanding of what meditation does and does not do. Meditation is not about "killing the ego" or seeing colors, hearing sounds, and experiencing visions. What a healthy meditation practice should do is make you a calmer, wiser, kinder human.
Tashi Nyima, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who leads a community in Dallas elaborates: "A good meditation has little or nothing to do with 'extra-sensory perceptions' or escaping temporarily from suffering. A walk, a nap, a vacation, or a warm bath can be more effective for such purposes. If we continue to harbor the same prejudices, the same irritability, and the same indifference toward the suffering of others when we rise from the cushion, it does not matter how many divine lights we see or how many celestial sounds we hear—our meditation is a farce. If we rise from the cushion with more patience, more love, and more compassion, our meditation has been good."
-Victor M Parachin, "How to Make Meditation a Habit the Buddhist Way," Spirituality & Health
Tashi Nyima, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who leads a community in Dallas elaborates: "A good meditation has little or nothing to do with 'extra-sensory perceptions' or escaping temporarily from suffering. A walk, a nap, a vacation, or a warm bath can be more effective for such purposes. If we continue to harbor the same prejudices, the same irritability, and the same indifference toward the suffering of others when we rise from the cushion, it does not matter how many divine lights we see or how many celestial sounds we hear—our meditation is a farce. If we rise from the cushion with more patience, more love, and more compassion, our meditation has been good."
-Victor M Parachin, "How to Make Meditation a Habit the Buddhist Way," Spirituality & Health