Have someone used The Mind Illuminated book as their main guide for meditation?

[marwane dk]

Basically this book is a complete meditation guide (buddhist meditation), it talks about 10 stages of meditation, every stage has a defined set of obstacles to overcome and a set of skills to develop, which will help you get over those obstacles, once that happen you can move to the next stage. Generally it guides you from stage 1 all the way to stage 10, which is a very advanced stage in meditation. 

 

My Story: 

couple of years ago I found this book. I was so exited to find something that’s gonna guide me from basic beginner meditation all the way to becoming an advanced meditator. So, I started meditating based on the instructions in it. after, about 7 months of meditating, 90 to 60 mins a day, I got to stage 4. I kept practicing stage 4 meditation for a couple of months but for some reason I just couldn’t get to the next stage I end up getting stuck in it for more than 2 years, in the book it says that a certain purification is going to happen in stage 4 that’s equivalent to years of therapy, which I was so exited about, but sadly it didn’t happen for me. I kept trying every single day but basically my mind was incapable of developing the required skills so I can move to the next stage.

there where some other challenges I had at the time and it got to the point where I decided to gave up and stoped meditating, didn’t get back to it since then. My idea now is to basically sit in a meditation cushion and do nothing, but unfortunately I just couldn’t get back to it and be serious about it the same way I was. 

 

Has anybody used this book as their guide? If yes, how did it go for you? 

what stage did you get to?

Generally what you think about this book?

Do you use any other guides?