This is not central to the original question (I agree with you that poverty and preventable diseases are more pressing concerns), but for what it’s worth, one shouldn’t be all that nonplussed at how the “insights” one might hear from “enlightened” people sound more like the sensation of insight than the discovery of new knowledge. Most people who’ve found something worthwhile in meditation—and I’m speaking here as an intermediate meditator who’s listened to many advanced meditators—would agree that progress/breakthroughs/the goal in meditation is not about gaining new knowledge, but rather, about seeing more clearly what is already here. (And doing so at an experiential level, not a conceptual level.)
This is not central to the original question (I agree with you that poverty and preventable diseases are more pressing concerns), but for what it’s worth, one shouldn’t be all that nonplussed at how the “insights” one might hear from “enlightened” people sound more like the sensation of insight than the discovery of new knowledge. Most people who’ve found something worthwhile in meditation—and I’m speaking here as an intermediate meditator who’s listened to many advanced meditators—would agree that progress/breakthroughs/the goal in meditation is not about gaining new knowledge, but rather, about seeing more clearly what is already here. (And doing so at an experiential level, not a conceptual level.)