Hello everyone. I wanted to share with you my practice for effective meditation.
I've recently perfected how to reliably hit Stage 7+ samadhi in Culadasa's 'The Mind Illuminated' with self enquiry.
Once you are there, you'll add the insight practice of self enquiry and hopefully make significant progress towards the first stage of permanent awakening: stream entry.
I'm not a stream enterer yet but the reason I want to share this is that I've experienced temporary and VERY reliable no self insights while doing this exact method. Not just once but almost every time I sit.  This is insane. This state I consistently hit prior to self enquiry is like a low dose LSD.
How to check if you are ready for self inquiry: My method's check is visual and the room starts to lose its solid property slightly due to advanced breath concentration and clear extrospective awareness. If you experience that, it is the perfect time to start self enquiry.
 I just want to share the technique with you since I've experienced a lot of intelligent ways of practicing samatha supported self inquiry.
My Method:
1- Start the session and quickly move towards Stage 7 in Culadasa's system.
Here is how I do it.
-- First, stabilize the attention to the breath at the tip of the nose for 20-30 seconds until it stays there with little to no effort. Do this without subtle dullness and energy loss. Follow the breath with bright clarity. (Make sure you are not meditating in very warm temperatures.)
If you can't do this reliably, then you must practice more with Culadasa's system and develop sustained attentional skills. Read his book 'The mind illuminated' for details. Forget about self-inquiry before mastering this. Trust me. Samadhi developed Self inquiry is 50 times more effective than dry self-inquiry in my experience. (Although people still get enlightened without any samadhi practice. It is your choice in the end.)
I presume you can reliably attain effortless breath attention in less than 10 mins. Once the access concentration is on this level, you need one more skill to do proper adept self enquiry practice.
2- Practice Extrospective Awareness with Shinzen Young's 'Gone' Technique.
For this skill, drop the breath practice for now. This is the key part of the puzzle after mastering Culadasa's breath concentration. Once Culadasa gets you to master sustained attention, now it is time to develop adept levels of awareness. Introspective (inner) awareness is a solid choice as well (Body awareness etc.) but extrospective (outer) awareness of external sounds and visuals will be our technique here.
If you don't know, google 'Shinzen Young's Gone Technique'. We won't label anything. The mind will ONLY notice the endings of external sounds. I HIGHLY recommend a piano piece where it is slow and the individual notes can be discerned. Endings in particular. If you are not into music, do it listening to Leo. Focus on 'goneness' every time Leo utters a word. You must develop awareness to a point where you can experience this at the end of most words regardless of how fast Leo speaks.
You can label 'Gone' until you experience this and intuitively feel that you are 'access-concentration' with the sound. Also, do this technique with open eyes. Because we'll synthesize everything in the 3rd step.
3- Combine Breath Concentration with Extrospective Awareness with Visual Check. (IMPORTANT!!!!)
This is the hard work in my opinion. Any meditator can work with these skills separately. But the low dose psychedelic experience reliably comes from simultaneous practice of Culadasa's bright breath concentration and Shinzen Young's clear 'Gone' extrospective awareness. In this stage, once you combine these two skills, you'll have to check if you don't delude yourself. You'll do this with visual fluidity.
Once you think you are 'there', open your eyes, look at the center of your visual field with relaxed eyes. If you experience less visual solidity in objects while you are combining these 2 meditation skills, then you are ready for self enquiry. Remember that at this point, your breath attention is effortless and extrospective awareness of 'Gone' is very pronounced. If not, then you are not ready for self inquiry.
4- Samatha supported Self Enquiry
You are done with the bulk of the work. At this point, the mind is pliant enough to have a permanent and transient insight experiences regarding no self, impermanence and suffering. Now we facilitate the no self experience with the classic: 'Who is experiencing?' 
Pick whatever phrasing you like:
'Who am I!
'Who is looking'
'Who is breathing'
Just make sure you ask the question and bask more in silence until you feel the effects. Consciously let the self enquiry question effect your samadhi. Because if you feel zero effect in concentration and awareness, then you are not doing self enquiry. You are just using it as a mindless mantra. This is a mistake.
Everytime you ask 'Who is experiencing?', You must experience a certain inner tug in your sensory experience. This is a potential insight experience. The more you experience and go deeper like this, the insight into no self will get clearer.
-----
That is it. Do this 90-120 mins a day and you'll progress so quickly that you'll be shocked how skilled you get on a daily basis. In fact, do 2 sits a day like this. I'm standing on the shoulders of spiritual geniuses like Shinzen Young and Culadasa. It is thanks to them that I've experienced these training methods. The strategy MATTERS. 
 I'll write again when I discover a more effective method and/or attain permanent stream-entry.
Hopefully, this guide helps all of you struggling with meditation
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

That is good. I would recommend you do more small dose mushroom trips. They will teach you a lot. Become comfortable in the mushroom space.
No, truth is not just truth. Truth is extremely radical and has many layers and facets to it. Most egos are not ready to handle the full Truth, they will recoil, freak out, reject, deny, demonize it, etc. To handle the Truth you gotta be at a certain level of development and you need a certain degree of purification of mind.
In practice one has to ease oneself into the Truth. Usually with spiritual work this happens gradually over years and decades. With psychedelics this whole process is short-circuited, thrusting you into the Truth within minutes or hours. With smoked 5-MeO-DMT, it's even worse, you're thrust into Buddha-levels of Truth within seconds. That's way too fast for most people. It can be overwhelming and traumatic if you're not ready.
Not all people have the same capacity to handle Truth. For some it's a lot easier than others. A lot of this has to do with how much ego you've got, how much psychological trauma or baggage you got, and how much you desire Truth.
Most people have a very low desire for Truth, which is why they spend some little time contemplating metaphysical questions.

Don't overthink it. It's certainly not done through logic. Logic is there to serve survival.
For me it just comes naturally as a means to my ultimate goal: Truth, Love, and understanding.
If you just desire Truth, and Love, and understanding enough, and work towards that, eventually ego-death will happen and it won't be a big deal.
Psychedelics help a lot with getting confortable with ego death. That is one of their most useful features. You can become so comfortable with it that you don't bat an eye when it happens.
Otherwise try years of Kriya yoga.

A) I don't know what you mean by that. You are painting with a broad brush here. People experience and realize different things.
Nondual consciousness is not a state of ego, it is the absence of ego, and the realization that your true nature is nothing and everything, or infinite, or God.
There are many people here who are unaware of many things. Just because they have some degree of realization does not mean they are aware of the deeper layers.
Ego dissolution also has layers and degrees of depth to it. The ego is a complex and relentless structure. It takes a lot of deconstruction work to fully get beyond it.
B) Do not start yet another nonduality debate.

It's a state of consciousness.
When that state changes, ego goes poof! like it never was.

Nice story bro, but Truth is everything and the only thing.
Psychedelics can certainly take one there. Of course here and there are nowhere and one and the same.
Truth is both temprary and eternal. It is all and nothing.
There is nothing but states of consciousness and you are in a state right now, regardless of what it is. All states are part of the Truth. Whether it is formed or formless is irrelvant.
These nonduality debates are getting really silly.

This is just false.
Psychedelics are not merely "an experience", they can take you to the Absolute.
Just because enlightenment may not require an experience shift does not entail that an experience shift cannot lead to an enlightenment. Psychedelics do not merely change one's experience, they radically elevate one's degree of consciousness -- which is the whole key to this work. Psychedelics put you into an instantaneous samadhi state. From this state one can contemplate and realize all sorts of things, including one's true nature or various facets of the Absolute.
The reason you're making this mistake is that you're trying to understand psychedelics in terms of some traditional spiritual paradigm like Buddhism, Zen, or Vedanta, which tend to discount state changes -- but psychedelics are a totally different path so it is inappropriate to judge it from those other paradigms.
Psychedelics can take you to levels of understanding and awakening which are simply impossible otherwise, or else possible but extremely rare and only for exceptionally gifted practitioners.
It is correct that you will not be able to permanently lock in a psychedelic peak state 24/7. But that is an improper expectation to begin with.
Psychedelics, when used properly, can absolutely take you to the highest, most Absolute Truth. Of course the real trick is integrating it and embodying, which requires a lot of additional work.
Psychedelic insights and realizations square up perfectly with those of Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, yoga, Christianity, Islam, and any other serious mystical tradition.
Shunyata, Brahman, The Self, no-self, ego-death, Allah, God, nonduality, Shiva, Buddha, nirvana, rigpa, samadhi, Mu, Infinity, The Void, Nothingness, The Dharmakaya, the godhead, union, Absolute Consciousness, satchitanadna, Truth, Love, kundalini awakening, Nibbana, formlessness, etc. -- all of this and more you can realize on psychedelics.

There was a biological weapons labs in Osho's commune. To this day, his followers committed the biggest biological weapon attack in US history.
Think about that.

@Hoyeon Lee The ego-self is constantly looking out to get its needs met. When its needs are not met, or it seriously threatened, it reacts in a knee-jerk manner with heavy negative emotions like fear, anger, and judgment to defend its survival.
The ego being afraid to die goes even deeper than that.
Think of putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger. That is ego being afraid to die. Now try to imagine what it would take not to be afraid of that and not to resist it.

In our fake culture did you really expect real vanilla beans to be used?
Most people have never even tasted a real vanilla bean. Real, fresh, raw, ground vanilla is amazing! Put it in your smoothies.
https://www.amazon.com/Wilderness-Poets-Pure-Vanilla-Powder/dp/B00ELNQ632/

@lostmedstudent No
There is never a comfortable and convenient way of facing death. You will never be "ready" for it. You must face it and deal with whatever arises. It doesn't have to be so difficult.
It's like you're being told to jump into a cold pool and you keep saying, "But maybe I should go do X before I jump in. Maybe I'm not ready for the cold." It' will always be cold. You cannot avoid that.
On my 24 birthday I went skydiving. I had to jump out of a fucking moving airplane at 12,000 ft. How did I do it? I just jumped. It was not pleasant. But I also didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it otherwise it would have been a lot worse.
Jumping out of an airplane is scarier than ego death on a psychedelic.

That attitude is not going to cut it. That is an attitude of fear.
You need to have an attitude of: "I want the truth and whatever the truth is, I will love and accept it."
Your attitude must be one of Truth & Love. Love for self, love for others, love for the world. Everything you fear and hate you must learn to love and see the beauty and value of.
Whatever you fear, the psychedelics will definitely make you face it head-on, if not in this trip then in the next. You cannot access God consciousness so long as you have fear of creatures or anything else. First you will have to purify yourself of all fear. Because God is pure Love! You cannot access God's infinite Love so long as there are parts of the universe that you hate or reject.
There is nothing in the universe to hate or fear because the entire universe is yourself. But this requires enormous emotional maturity to embody. This is where the real inner growth happens.
Imagine seeing your worst nightmare and loving it. That is the proper attitude. This is the whole point of all of our work. To become unconditionally loving. It's not easy to do for humans. But then again, that's why you're on this Earth in the first place: to learn to love. Earth is a love simulator.

That's exactly right. I know exactly what you're talking about. That's the ego's natural reaction to going directly for enlightenment. It's terrified of the unknown infinitude. Only natural and totally expected.
The solution is to push through it, face the fear head-on, until you breakthrough to the other side. This can take many attempts.
This is why religions call it "taking the leap of faith". You place your faith in Truth as your highest aim and desire, and blindly leap for it not knowing what will happen. From your POV it feels like you will die. But your love for Truth must be so great that you desire it so much that you are willing to die to have it. And so you do. But in reality what will happen is the ego will collapse and you will land in an infinitely deep pool of the softest down feathers. That is paradise, heaven, nirvana, -- AKA, the Love of God.
But you cannot know this before you take the leap.
Fear of death & insanity is what keeps you from entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
But of course, you must realize, all fear is imaginary. You are like the groundhog terrified of its own shadow.
Psychedelics make ego-death a lot easier.

Imagination has many levels of depth to it.
The walls of your house are imaginary, but this is a degree of imagination which is beyond your typical human purview.
In other words, you as God are imagining (at very deep levels), that the walls of your house are not imaginary but real. In this way God creates physics.
If you chnage your state of consciousness you will see that those physical walls were actually imaginary all along.

Definitely this is the biggest challenge of the path: embodying it deeply in everyday life. This is especially difficult with psychedelics because they take you so high so fast, no one can live from those places of infinite consciousness and still interact in the social world.
At high doses of psychedelics you are not a human any more. It is like venturing to new alien dimensions.

Long story short:
The ultimate nature is playful 
I am eternal
I am timeless

I delight in my own creation
Short story long:
Hello friends
It has been a while 
Nine months have passed since I fried my ass off with 200µg of LSD last Septemeber.
After a lot of integration and working on myself in everyday life I found myself in a good spot to drop some acid again.
Once more tripping all alone; no tripsitter, no safety nets. This time at an isolated place in a nature reserve where I am currently working   but with half the dose – 100µg of LSD. I was worried the acid might have lost some of it’s potency due to being stored at room temperature for over a year now, but these worries were unjustified

In comparison to my last trip:
Less visuals, less sacred geometry. No Kechari Mudra this time ;-)
Deeper, more raw energetic kundalini stuff + some surprises
More Death | more Non-Dual | more Love !
 
So here’s what happened:
18:00pm : I drop the tab,  read “The teachings of Don Juan” and listened to the fabulous “Leylines” Album by Aes Dana.

~18:45pm: Can't read anymore, I start dancing. Dancing is great way in & out of the trip. Strong desire to be more aware of my body. Exploring energy moving through the shoulders and neck – I should straighten up my posture! Only slight patterns and visuals at this point, but my mind is already going places..

After some dancing I come to a dead end, gently drop to the floor, arms out to the sides, and watch myself die. I seem to somehow have  skipped the comeup and directly went from "barely any effect" to "full blow trip"! Tingling at the base of the spine, light in my head.
Here the unspeakable territory of yogic states begins. 
This is what I saw

Dry analysis is ego, Light shines through in emotions

This life is my offering to you, Shiva
Angels and demons guard the same door
Ravenous energies moving up the spine
With pleasure I kiss shut deaths eye

How does a self self-terminate?
In the end there is nothing you do, you just give in to what was your deepest desire all along – you surrender and explode in ecstasy!

There was no-Self to begin with!
 

 
 
Oh dear Lord! Self-awareness kicks back in, but the meditator within me doesn’t want the endless orgasm to end – “I can last longer!” – so he keeps the body unmoving and goes for some more rounds on the strange-loop of (non)existence.
I arise from my ecstatic slumber.
I get up and go the bathroom, pulled by strings beyond my control, and face myself in the mirror. Hard to explain what happened there. 
I see myself as I am, with all my tensions and imperfections.
My face morphs through various beings, from angelic benevolent rabbits to demonic shapeshifting lizards. From time to time my reflection disappears comepletely, leaving just the empty bathroom.
I take off my clothes, look at my body. Imperfect by flawless design. 
Divine, tempting!
I watch myself transform into a woman – androgynous mastermind 
Goddamn shapeshifters! ;-)

I walk back to the living room and sit down on the floor, meditation posture.
I vividly experience “energetic blockages” in the right side of my body, specifically in the right abdomen slightly above the navel. Left is conscious, right is unconscious. I had been increasingly aware of several “dysfunctions” on the right side of my body over the last months, now it all was very clear. The root of the energetic distortion lies deep within the right side of the pelvis, hard to explain. This is my karma, this is the work I have to do!
For the first time I connect this to the appendectomy I had 10 years ago. I repressed the entire procedure! I let the memories surface with as much love and awareness as possible. Funny to look at it from the nondual perspective;
I cut out a party of myself
Because it would have killed me
Interesting
 
That was the first part of the trip, the peak; Surrendering, experiencing some esoteric/mystic/ occult/ecstatic far far out stuff you can’t talk about without being tackled from left and right, merging with the Absolute, reentering into karmic existence and clearing out some baggage on the way. Lovely.
The second part of the trip was all about embodiment of nondual consciousness and how I fail at doing that. Huge lesson.
Here's what happened:

I stand up as God, as Myself.
I look out of the window; flawless nature, the sun is setting.
I gaze into the sun. Aligning the small ego self with the big Godself.
Merging with love, drowning in love
Infinite Pleasure,
Infinite Love,
Infinite Death,
Infinite Anything
 
 
Hey, babe… I’m the sun
 
 
I love it all so much; I want to go outside, I want to be with my creation!
 
Egoic fear starts surfacing. I know I am all alone out here in nature, but it could be possible for some coworkers to come by. They can’t see me like this, walking through the garden, all ego-less!?
Inner conflict.
The same resistance you feel when for the first time engaging someone you truly love; fear of how it will turn out, fear of the unknown. But an irresistible urge to do so anyways. You have to trust, and step forward with love!
I put on some shorts (huge mistake! :D) and made my way outside. 
Why did I even lock the door? 
Was I afraid someone would come by, rob, rape and murder me? 
I just kicked in my own front door and shot myself in the head! (with Love) Nothing to be afraid of now, hahaha

It feels good to be outside
But there are still old patterns, memories…
God would have just walked off into the wilderness
I turned right and slowly, consciously, step by step approached the garden and with it my synchronicity moment of the year, a funny little allegory about psychedelics and God-Consciousness;
God-Me walks into his garden and sees a rabbit, feasting and nibbling on the tasty, fresh and young strawberries God-Me had planet just a week ago. Gotcha!
God-Me stands still and intensely focuses his piercing gaze on the God-Rabbit.
The rabbit abruptly stops eating, crouches and contracts in fear.
God-Me loosens his tight gaze, squats down, extends his hand and mentally says “It’s okay you little rascal, come here, I want to love you!”
The rabbit runs away.
What a shame, I just wanted to love it.
I sit down and reflect. If I really am myself, the rabbit, the strawberries and the garden, what does this mean? 
No time to reflect. I hear the sound of an approaching car - coworkers incoming!!
They can’t see me like this, sitting in the garden all ego-less! With fear I contract and run back into the house.
I am the rabbit!

I want it to happen without drugs, that’s the only excuse I have
Fear is the basic mechanism of separation; fear of Death, fear of Love, fear of Self
Back inside, back inside my egoic safe space.
I realize there was no car approaching at all. I just imagined it.
What a shame, I could have just loved it.
 
Too much of this love kills me
 
Inside I sit in meditation and contemplate what just happened. I realize I have to give it another try, I have to come out of hiding.
In addition to the shorts I put on a shirt and again venture outside. Now I feel more comfortable about being outside. I have to slowly adjust myself to these new levels of consciousness. So much energy in the system. I sit in meditation.

Again I hear the sound of a car approaching. Same old fear, wanting to run inside.
But NO! I am creating this! And I choose to create out of Love, not out of fear! 
I sit still. No coworkers.
 
So much energy!! I get up and spontaneously do some impromptu Tai-Chi / Kung-Fu / Martial Arts. So that’s what that stuff is all about!
Most of it must have looked uncoordinated and weird – my first real training session!
Some of those movements however…
If you really focus, intensely zone in…

Mind&Matter moving together

This is how God creates! Directly – effortless will

I TaiChi-myself into a fascinating realization:
Who cares about a few mosquito bites…
I am a motherucking MACHINE ELF! The intelligence that guides the separation, the code that runs the divine operating system! 
Eternally recreating myself…
 
My heart bursts open, it feels so good to be back, I missed myself so much!
Like a father, like a mother, like a son, like a daughter, like a brother, like a sister, like a teacher, like a friend, like a lover

“I love you!”
       Is that really true?
“Sure babe, I’d tell you anything. I AM you!”
 


Not much happened after that, I was just awake for 6 more hours. I meditated in the house, again naked but wrapped in a blanket, exploring visions of myself as a Sage, bathing in this new awareness. Dealing with the aftermath of chemically induced kundalini, trying to get the energy out of the system…
Then I fell asleep at around 6:00am


Takeaways from the trip:
Love! A call to authenticity and spontaneity! I already am on that path, just gotta keep on walking… The destination is radical but it is worth it! (+there is no other option lol)
Getting more grounded in the body! More Yoga, maybe start doing TaiChi.
 
There were two more paragraphs I wanted to write.
One about how I failed my own Zen Koan challenge (realized the answer but didn’t act it out).
The other about Love only being perceived when there is something to be loved.
But I don’t know how to express that without starting nonduality-wars ;-)
So I’ll just leave it at that.
 
Here’s a goodie for you to chew on:

I am that
I (1)
create the Two (and remain in between) 
Did you get it? 
 
 
Love you all!

Fake vanilla flavor is made out of beaver urine.
Remember that next time you go for cheap vanilla ice cream

@Psychonaut It is not going to make sense from your current state of consciousness that your dog is imaginary.
What's needed is not a belief that he was imaginary but a change in your state of consciousness.
Also don't forget that imagination is reality. So your dog is real: as real as anything else can be.
When everything is a dream, all dreamed up creations have a reality of their own.

There is no formula for it. You push as hard as you can until you can't go further.
It's sort of like you're asking: How do I know how many miles I can run before I am too tired to run any more?
Go do it and see where your limit is. Then train some more and your limit will rise.
There are many aspects of your life you could work on developing if you don't feel ready for the Fully Monty yet. Go work on your career/life purpose or your relationships or your diet or your self-esteem. All of that is good stuff.

Hi everyone  
I am excited to announce a little project I've been working on for the past couple of months.
The Actualized.org Textbook!
I have assembled a document of summaries of foundational Actualized.org videos based on the "Start Here" section of the website. In addition, there are some extra video summaries at the end.
A lot of these summaries were written by me but I would also like to acknowledge that a very major part of the work came from the video summary thread and also some YouTube comments. I would like to thank @Juan Cruz Giusto, @TimStr, @Huz, @Nic, @Hello from Russia, @AleksM, and @Dan Arnautu from this forum for their significant and very helpful contributions. 
I have tried as best I can to standardise the format, but doing this perfectly would take a massive amount of time. So please do note that the summaries are written by different authors with different stylistic preferences, some with English as a second language. Secondly, there are still small mistakes and probably some typos that I haven't picked up.
This document is best suited for:
-People who have seen the videos and want brief notes
-People who are up to speed with the latest videos and have followed for a while, understanding the conceptual frameworks within spirituality
 
For complete newbies, or people who have recently joined, the summaries may confuse you a little so I recommend you watch the original videos. A lot of the nuance and subtlety is lost in text.
Also,
This is version 1.0 and I have linked word and pdf attachments to this post. 
You are free to download them and modify them as you see fit. However, if you wish to update this version (i.e. fixing mistakes or adding in more fundamental videos) for the community, please keep a couple of things in mind:
- There is a changelog on the 2nd page, so please insert changes made and also update the version number (i.e 1.1 from small fixes or 2.0 when a significant amount of content is added)
- Also, please consider that when content is added, page numbers may not sync up so you will have to update them.
 
Think of this as the textbook for the undergraduate course.
- Watching the video is like going to class
- The textbook is like all your classes in one place in note form.
- To get a good grasp and to orientate yourself you will need a massive theory base at the beginning (i.e an 3-4 year undergrad degree)
- Taking action and watching the advanced videos will be like post-graduate study
- Doing this work seriously and taking massive amounts of action, and going off on your own is like doing a PhD
 
You need to get the basic theory down BUT YOU MUST NOT GET LOST IN THEORY AND CONCEPTS. Orientate yourself, and go take action (a Masters/PhD candidate does experiments in the lab, he doesn't just sit in lecture theatres) 
My main reason for assembling this is I see a lot of wasted time on the forum (myself included) of theorising and arguing and advanced people not communicating at the newbie level to newbies. Don't get me wrong, the forum is a great place and many people have helped me here (thank you!)
This is my parting gift to the community. I saw that I avoided doing the work by visiting the forum too much so I will be leaving to do the work for the next 5-10 years. My main focus is embodying and fully integrating stage orange, green, and yellow, as well as doing the spiritual practices and planning for psychedelic retreats.
Finally, @Leo Gura, I'm so sick of hearing your voice. I've probably listened to 20 of your videos in the last 3 days  I only now have caught a tiny glimpse of how much work has been put in by you over the past 5 years. Thank you for what you do! I'll still be sticking around for the advanced stuff  
Actualized Textbook.docx
Actualized Textbook.pdf

Note: This document is a work-in-progress and will be improved and supplemented over time.
-----------------------
So you wanna become enlightened, eh?
Good!
That's where this journey starts.
A burning desire for TRUTH is essential to success in this. Don't let people confuse you with talk of how "desire is bad", "seeking is delusion". No! Seeking is essential to breakthrough. Don't burn your ship before you've crossed the ocean! That would be foolish.
Rather than filling your mind with beliefs and ideas about enlightenment, let me give you a bare-bones structure for how to actually make progress towards enlightenment.
There are at least 20 totally different ways that I know for how to get enlightened. What I'm going to share with you here is just ONE way out of dozens. It is however a very direct way. This method is highly effective. It may not work for everyone, but then again, no method works for everyone. I call this method self-observation or Leo's version of self-inquiry. "Self-inquiry" as classically taught by Ramana Maharishi is technically different.
Anyways...
First, let's be very clear what we're talking about when we speak of enlightenment.
So...
What this basically means is that YOU are deeply confused about who you think you are. Right now you think that you're a human being, sitting there, reading this text on your screen. This is false. Pure fantasy. You are in fact not that thing at all. What we have here is a case of mistaken identity. You think you're a body, but you're not. You think you're a mind, but you're not. You think you're an entity living inside your head, but you're not. You think you are a physical object but you are not!
Take a moment to seriously consider the magnitude of my claim. IF I happen to be right, and you happen to be wrong, then what that means is: you are NOT a human being, or even a physical object! Not metaphorically-speaking; not as some philosophical curiosity; but literally!
How could such an outrageous thing be possible??????
How could you be mistaken about what you actually are?????
Very easily actually!
Recall how you've met people in your life who you knew were indoctrinated from birth with silly religious beliefs about Jesus and all sorts of other nonsense. Recall how little children believe that Santa Claus exists because they don't know any better. Recall how terrorists believe they are killing civilians in the name of Allah and will go to heaven with 72 virgins waiting for them. Recall how racists insist they are right for persecuting minorities.
Well... here's something you're not gonna like hearing: that same delusion mechanism which existed in them, is operating FULL-FORCE within you right now! Yup! You too have been indoctrinated by ignorant parents and teachers from birth into believing a fairy-tale. Except in this case, the indoctrinated idea was: you are a human being.
What a mind fuck!
Now, in this work of "self-observation", you will discover -- for yourself -- what you REALLY are.
Important: I am not asking you to believe me. You will have to demonstrate empirically, for yourself, that what I say is accurate. You can be skeptical all you want here. It won't upset me.
"Okay" you say. "So what am I then if I'm not a human being or a physical object?"
Great question!
Sorry to tell you this, but your ENTIRE identity and life story is just a giant optical illusion. Like this non-existent triangle:

There's nothing really there! Although it sure seems convincing, doesn't it?
The problem is that you cannot know what you are rationally or logically because the mind is the source of the confusion. See.... No matter how cleverly or deeply or long you think, all the mind can ever do is symbolize stuff. It can only create maps and models. But you are not a symbol or a map or a model! You are not an idea or a thought! So you have to directly experience what you are. This MAY take months or years of very careful self-investigation.
Note: I am saying that you have NEVER IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE ever experienced yourself before! You've only experienced phenomena, none of which is essentially YOU!
So what is this mysterious "essential you"? Let me spoil the surprise because otherwise you will waste YEARS searching in the wrong places, thinking you've found yourself when you really just found another false belief.
So... as directly as possible now: the entity who thinks it's reading this sentence does NOT exist!
Again, please try to fathom the magnitude of what is being said. This is extremely radical (but nevertheless true).
Since you are pure awareness, all your focus goes toward shining "light" on sensory phenomena so it's really hard to "see" yourself. Pure awareness is very subtle, which means you have to develop extraordinary mindfulness abilities to "see" yourself.
"But Leo?! You can't be serious! This sounds like a crazy New Age hippy conspiracy!"
Let me assure you it's not. I am no hippy. I'm probably more rational and logical than you are. But I do recognize the limits of logic and rationality.
The problem here is that you've been so brainwashed by society that what I'm telling you right now sounds crazy. That's okay. Just keep your mind open to the possibility that what I'm claiming can be directly verified by you. Nothing here has to be believed. But you do have to be willing to take it on as a temporary hypothesis to be verified or falsified.
 
Leo's Patented () Step-By-Step Process To Become Enlightened:
Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit alone. (You don't need to sit cross-legged.) Turn off your smart phone and disconnect from all distractions Set a digital timer for 60 minutes Now sit silently and start to genuinely wonder: "What am I if I'm not the body?" Do NOT meditate! Sit and carefully observe your direct experience. Notice that direct experience is THE ONLY THING you have of reality. Nothing else is real. Realizing this should make you very "present". Try to locate yourself within direct experience. Be very specific and clear with yourself: What are you? Are you a foot? A hand? A face? A mind? A brain? The envelop of the skin? The picture of yourself in the mind's eye? A feeling in the chest? What? Seriously! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU????????????? Notice that anything you might point to as being "your true self" cannot be true, because that's just another experience arising. Here's the logic of it: Firstly, it isn't constant. It fades in and out throughout the day, so it cannot be you. Secondly, you are observing it, so it cannot be you because "you" are the one doing the observation. So again, WHAT ARE YOU? Open your mind to the possibility that you are mistaken about being a human body or mind. Just sit there and keep genuinely wondering about what you really could be. Try to locate the one who's perceiving things. Do not philosophize or come up with theories. Focus 100% on what your direct experience is telling you. This is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL!!!!!!!! The bulk of the work happens right here at this step. You have to slowly become aware that all your thoughts and ideas and feelings about "you" are not really you. They are just symbols and stories. For example: notice that the image of your body that you have in your mind is NOT actually your body! It's just an image! And the same goes for the feelings that make up your body. Those feelings are real, but they are not actually you! As any theories arise of what you think you are, notice that what that is, is a thought! And no thought can be you because you are the one perceiving the thought, and also because your existence does not depend on any particular thought's existence. Notice you don't cease to exist in between thoughts. Just sit and keep doing this for 60 minutes without getting distracted in irrelevant thoughts. As your mind wanders off track (and it will wander a lot) don't beat yourself up. Just bring your focus back on the self-observation. After 60 minutes, stop and notice what happened. Notice if your mind feels "elevated" or more aware. Frustration and confusion are OF COURSE going to arise. Do NOT be discouraged by frustration or confusion. Believe it or not, these are signs of progress. Do not expect instant results. You must be very methodical and patient like a crocodile. Repeat this process every day for at least 60 minutes for the next few months. Be very patient. It will take several months just to start to get your bearings straight. And by that I don't mean you will become enlightened. I mean you merely begin to realize the magnitude of your ignorance. In this time span of 3 months -- let's say -- you will get a strong sense that it really isn't possible to locate yourself. This may seem like you've failed, but actually this is a huge advance. Now you've finally started to realize that you've never really met yourself before. Now the journey towards enlightenment can begin in earnest!
Just keep doing the process without discouragement. At some point, your mind will crack and you will surrender to the realization that there's no one home. That life has always run with you. And BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!!! Enlightenment has occurred! Notice, I did not say YOU got enlightened. Rather, enlightenment has occurred.
So who got enlightened? No one.
 
 
Tips For Self-Observation:
Don't just do this process mechanically, you MUST be genuinely curious about the truth of what you are. Try to establish a daily habit of self-observation. You need to build consistency and momentum. Be very careful about coming up with theories about what you are. We don't care about theories here. Every theory is NOT it. We only care about direct experience. REPEAT: ALL THEORIES AND IDEAS ARE DISTRACTIONS! Spend time asking yourself who you really believe that you are under the conventional worldview. Are you a body or are you the owner of the body? Are you inside the skull? If so, where exactly? The point of doing this is so you're clear and honest about your present beliefs, even if you intellectually know they are false. It's very important to get clear what exactly your false beliefs are. Do not be vague in your answers to the query of What are you? It's vital that you be precise and specific. Answers such as, "Well, I dunno, I'm just in the skull somewhere." are NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! What EXACTLY are you identifying with? Hint: it will either be a thought, a body sensation, an emotion, a visual perception, or a combination of the above. But all of those cannot be the true you because they are not constant. Create an active sense of doubt that you are a human being or a physical object Any belief, thought, or idea about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. Any sensory experience about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. All scientific theories or models are automatically FALSE! Drop it. All spiritual, New Age, or religious ideas about who you really are, are FALSE! Drop it. You are NOT a visible object or "thing" so stop looking for yourself like you would look for a missing dog. You are NOT located in any area of space, so stop looking for yourself as a point or hidden object somewhere. You are NOT located inside "your" head You are NOT located inside "your" body There is nothing magical to discover in this process. You are not some kind of unicorn or fairytale creature. There is nothing hidden. Everything you see before you is exactly what there is, nothing more, nothing less. It is not possible to find yourself, so this process is futile. But you need to realize that through doing the process. Not by believing me. You will get VERY frustrated during this process and want to quit. Just accept the frustration and keep going. This process will surface deep emotional issues from our subconscious mind. You will experience emotional turmoil and anguish. Just accept it and keep going. You will feel depressed at times. Just accept it and keep going. Your mind will use every excuse in the book to distract you and get you to stop looking. Stay vigilant to all these tricks and keep looking. DO NOT GET TRICKED INTO STOPPING! The truth of what you are is ever-present. It is always HERE and NOW. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything to see it. You are you right now! Be prepared for this self-observation process to take several years if necessary. Understand that enlightenment happens always only in the NOW. Never in the future. You can be enlightened RIGHT THIS SECOND! You don't need to wait 3 years. Always intend to become enlightened right now! Enlightenment/Truth is NOT an emotional state. Enlightenment is occurring always, even when you're watching TV or sitting on the toilet. Meditation is NOT enlightenment. A psychedelic high is NOT enlightenment. A powerful energetic experience is NOT enlightenment. A vision or hallucination (however real it may feel) is NOT enlightenment. Enlightenment is what's absolutely true without ever changing. Don't forget the possibility that you may not be a thing! Don't forget the possibility that there might be nothing to find There is no you to become enlightened. When this is realized, that's enlightenment! Hint: it's MUCH simpler than you think. A HUGE HINT:
The thing you're looking for but aren't finding... THAT'S YOU!!! Don't expect it to have any attributes. Don't expect the mind to have anything whatsoever to latch onto.
You cannot grab NOTHINGNESS by the collar.
You can only realize you're already it.
Think of it this way: you are looking for a needle in a haystack, but this is no ordinary needle. In this case the needle is literally the realization there was no needle to begin with!
A cosmic joke! You've been punked by God (yourself).
 
 
Best Self-Observation Questions:
What am I? No, seriously now... WHAT THE FUCK AM I????? No, cut the shit! What am I -- RIGHT NOW -- in my direct experience???? Who is aware of reality? Who is aware of me? Who is perceiving? Who is the owner of the body? Who is the owner of the mind? Who is feeling pain? Who is asking all these questions? What was I before I was born? What am I when I'm in deep sleep? What could I be if I'm not the human body/mind? What connects and unifies all of my different senses? What is true independent of ever-changing sense experience? What is true independent of my life and my death? Why do I believe I'm the body? Why do I believe I'm the mind? Where to do thoughts arise from? If I'm the body, what is everything else that I'm seeing? Why do I trust my feeling that I'm the body? Is a feeling really evidence of TRUTH? Why must I be an object? What if the "perciever" has no attributes or properties? When I close my eyes, where did the world disappear to? Where is sound occurring? Where are thoughts occurring? Where are body sensations occurring? What is the relationship between physical body sensations and my visual field? What if I don't exist? What if I can't locate myself because I am "empty" or without form or attribute? What if I'm addicted to looking only for objects or perceptions, but my true nature is neither of those? What if I'm just an idea? What if my entire paradigm of physical reality is just an idea? Could my body and brain just be ideas? Is any physical object actually permanent according to direct experience? What distinguishes one object from another? Do boundaries between things really exist, or are they ideas? What would happen if I stopped distinguishing existence from non-existence?  
 
How To Tell If You're Enlightened:
This is very simple. Answer the following questions honesty:
Did a major shift in awareness occur? Are you absolutely clear now of what you are? Are you the physical human body you've always thought you were? Do you feel infinite, without boundaries or location? Do you actually understand, or are you in a temporary meditative high? If you answered: "YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!"  then there's a pretty good chance you're enlightened. If your answers were not: "YES! YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!"  then chances are you aren't enlightened. Keep trying.

If in doubt, find an enlightened master to help you verify the depth of your realization.
Don't get cocky, remember, there is more than one enlightenment breakthrough to be had. You ain't gonna become Buddha with just a few years of self-observation.
Is it worth the struggle?
Abso-fucking-luty! Awakening is divine.
 
 
Videos Explaining Enlightenment In More Depth:
https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-intro https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-to-do-next-after-learning-about-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-3 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-1 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-become-enlightened https://www.actualized.org/articles/my-enlightenment-experience https://www.actualized.org/articles/being-a-spiritual-seeker-good-or-bad https://www.actualized.org/articles/radical-openmindedness https://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-awareness https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-enlightened-self https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-benefits-of-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-your-mind-distorts-reality https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-guided-inquiry https://www.actualized.org/articles/grasping-the-illusory-nature-of-thought https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-is-god https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-dark-side-of-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/mystical-traditions-around-the-world https://www.actualized.org/articles/becoming-a-zen-devil List Of Enlightenment Exercises:
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/7587-list-of-enlightenment-exercises/  
 

@Peo Actual and imaginary are ONE!
Notice how your questions contain dualistic assumptions.
You assume something other than imagination is possible. Well, you're imagining that! Imagination has no opposite since any opposite would itself be imaginary.

IPEC, the coach training program I completed has a Myers-Briggs-like assessment for gauging a person's level of consciousness. It's quite good but they charge money to take it. That's just one example.
It's not hard to design a questionnaire which will assess a person's level of consciousness.
Here are a few same questions:
On a scale of 1 to 5, rate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Nothing is bad in the world. The world is perfect exactly as it is. I am able to give love freely to all living beings. Fear is an illusion. All living beings are interconnected. Science is a partial, narrow, relative way of understanding the world. If the body is destroyed, my true self will not be harmed. Morality is a relative human invention. Every religion is part true, and part false. I am responsible for creating my emotions. All evil is done out of lack of consciousness & ignorance. Etc.
An unconscious person will not be able to strongly agree to any of the above statements because their ego is too insecure and because their everyday experience does not demonstrate the above truths.
To an unconscious person the above questionnaire will appear stupid, childish, hopelessly unrealistic, and even delusional. Which precisely tells you their level of consciousness.

That 1/4 tsp you mention is not used for measuring the substance, it's merely used as a mixing container. Such a sized spoon is big enough to mix basically any dose of psychedelic that is safe to consume.
When you suck up the substance + water mixture from the spoon using the syringe, the suction will pull up all particles of matter, even if its not fully dissolved. Of course a few particles tend to remain on the very bottom of the spoon. But you can even suck those up by adding a couple more drops of water after your first suction, and doing a second smaller suction. If done carefully, that second suction should ensure that you get 98%+ of the substance into the syringe.
Use the microscoop to stir the substance into the water.

Firstly, you DO get some access. You have some access to it even now. You've been using God's creative aspect your whole life. What do you think your mind is? Don't take your mind for granted. It is a powerful creative force.
Secondly, there are still limits because that's what it means to be human. You cannot just grow wings and fly off into the sunset. Because God has imagined a rule-bound world. That is what your current state of consciousness entails. If you were to radically change your state you could grow wings and fly away. Which you can do in your dreams, for example. But you tell yourself that that doesn't count. Well, that's your mistake right there. You are imagining that dreams and reality are two different things. They aren't. They are just different states of consciousness.