hi liane, I enjoyed the article kiyojueryu ,thanks for that .I also have asked my tai chi teacher (LEE FAMILY}and my Aikido teacher and got the same answers as you. I to have a desire to find out about the innerself. but I come at this from a different angle, I have been practising "self knowledge" for for many years, and took up MA's for excercise . I was drawn to tai chi by Loa tsu and Chaung tsu. Aikido interested me because of Uisheba's spiritual writings.I think we must be careful what we want MA's to give us .After all Uisheba went to a visionary for his path of enlightenment and surely we must do the same , this is not to put down MA's in anyway ,I love them and the beauty in the movements. I find that practicing self knowledge [1hr] every day and then doing my forms I can become more deeply involved in the movements because I am already in that still point before I start .My teacher of SK has a web site perhaps you might like to take a look
WWW.TPRF.COM . It has changed my life and helped me to understand the total importance of peace . I could talk allday on the topic of inner peace but I won't , have a look at my teacher's website ,I know it will answer many questions and make you feel nice .malc