Satori-type experiences can mess up people big time if they don't have basic issues squared away.
Yep. They can really throw you off the path entirely due the, pardon the bullshit phrase, "egoic backlash". The idea being that when you go into contemplative practice with the expectation of something - that's your ego sabotaging you right there. The first indications of "kensho" - (and for parlance sake I'm using Zen terms as opposed to other Buddhist terms simply because they're what I'm used to) - that teeny moment where the ego is quelled... usually doesn't last long. But it's long enough for the returning ego to proclaim triumph over "ENLIGHTENMENT!" WOOO!!! I DID IT!!!... yeah... not really.
That's where the danger lies.
The fundamentals that really wise people emphasize are the seemingly simple but really challenging things so often dismissed as "not religious" because they're not peculiar to any sect, not esoteric at all. Everybody can see them, we're just lazy about practising them.
Anyone who claims to be "above" morality and modesty is fooling himself.
They're challenging because the default condition we live with is feeding our desires. It doesn't help most of us were raised in a crass consumer society hellbent on extolling our egos as the greatest thing EVAR!!!!
I think you hit on something important - the equivocation with morality/ethics with religion is a bad thing that many people do. Atheists toss out morality and ethics as associated with religion because of religion. Religious wingnuts make spurious claims about religion being the genesis of morality, when this is clearly not true to anyone with half a thought.
Ethics in particular is a social function that has evolved with us AS social animals. Of course it's easy to dismiss that if you're religious and don't believe in evolution. Yet, ethics and morality were well established before western theological traditions were ever in existence. That alone should be enough... but of course that hurts too many people's feelings.
The intellectual fripperies and emotional ecstasies that win fame and fortune for Deepak Chopra and ilk are valued as distractions from the hard work of real learning. Contemplation without basic discipline tends to be worse than ineffective.
"Basic Discipline" means shutting up. And sitting down. The rest will come. No one (in my experience) suddenly has kensho, much less a higher state like satori or nirvikalpa samadhi (okay I fibbed - not a strict Zen term) on one try. So yeah - you have to develop the discipline by doing the action of inaction.
Deepak and his "ilk" (I like using that word... it's so... dripping with condescending fun. For the record - I'm only kidding when I'm doing it)... are useful for getting people to just "try".
to the degree that anyone pursues it... is well... debatable. But if it gets someone to stop being an asshole - sure, go for it.