Philosophy, or succinct maxims that arrive sooner to it's (logical) point without allowing massive amounts of interpretation is best. When readers start swaying or expanding on what they read in favour of ones situation, much like cherry picking scripture from any 'holy' book, that is when it becomes meaningless.
Granted, there are good outcomes from bad situations; 'blessings in disguise,' however, that would mean there was devine intervention for causation. As Neil deGrass Tyson said, "there was a time where there was no other explanation for things, and we assigned meaning to those situations, but we know better now."

It's important to study everything, ancient beliefs, etc, to understand the building blocks of societies and cultures, however, everything evolves, changes, improves from it's original format in order to survive.

Spirituality and being one with your environment is different from religion or faith in a big bearded guy in the sky.

They are all, as you reference, human constructs. Theirs are simply different due to cultural metaphors. But as human constructs, they are as fancifully false as are those based on western metaphors.

If one finds any of these philosophies comforting, then that is who you are.

Yes, it is a creation of man. It's all in the history books, and it's all memetics.

Mysticism is BS too. There is no supernatural, period. You can take up a philosophy of life, but don't expect these philosophies to contain absolutes.

Gurdjieff.....man, I haven't read/heard that name in a long time.
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No. I don't put much into mysticism.

I haven’t read Gurdjieff but you have aroused my interest. Castaneda is very intriguing, but I personally would be afraid to use any type of mind-altering drug. It’s not exactly mysticism, but I love writers such as Rupert Sheldrake, Eckhardt Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Robert Lanza, and Dean Radin.
Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman has written some exciting essays on “Conscious Realism”,

I expect criticism from some of those who adhere to a materialist/reductionist model. Some of those names arouse strong negative emotions.

I am an ordained Dudeist priest, but I love the Sufi way of life.

There is no scientific consensus supporting the supernatural or the paranormal.

I agree on the statement that religions are a creation of "man". However it is my belief that most (all?) Religions contain many pearls of ancient wisdom that we would be foolish to disregard (although we can dispense with the deity bit).

Logic is the only real path to truth.

I have to say that I feel the same way that I feel toward a god. Even though I can’t prove that there isn’t a god or gods, all one needs to do is ask “what is the likelihood of such a being existing?” and where is the proof.

An elusive subject. I think there is more than we perceive, but how we interact with it I have no idea. I'll leave that to the experts.