What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart.It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable.
Perception without the word, which is without thought, is one of the strangest phenomena. Then the perception is much more acute, not only with the brain, but also with all the senses. Such perception is not the fragmentary perception of the intellect nor the affair of the emotions. It can be called a total perception, and it is part of meditation.
What would happen if you were to allow everything to be exactly as it is? If you gave up the need for control, and instead embraced the whole of your experience in each moment that arose?
If you are a meditator, as your meditation goes on becoming more and more luminous, your intelligence will be growing to the last breath of your life. Not only that, even after the last breath your intelligence will continue to grow - because you are not going to die, only your body will be dying. And the body has nothing to do with intelligence, mind has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is the quality of your awareness - more aware, more intelligent. And if you are totally aware, you are as intelligent as this whole existence is.
The first thing to realize in meditation is that there is no authority, that the mind must be completely free to examine, to observe, to learn. And so there is no following, no accepting, no obedience.
If you were only to listen, it becomes meditation. Without meditation you cannot hear. What is the meaning of meditation? Meditation exists only where mind is not; where the internal dialogue is gone.