LOL
Yes! There is INSIGHT and UNDERSTANDING.
You cannot reduce those two to anything more fundamental.
You must have an insight into what insight is. You do not understand what understanding is. Just notice that.
This requires serious contemplation. It will not be explained to you in words.
With deep enough insight you will realize that perception isn't even a thing. Perception is actually Being/Truth. "Perception" is a dualiatic notion, so be careful with just throwing that word around.
A good way to contemplate what insight is, is to bring to mind specific examples of insight. For example, an insight was necessary for you to realize that whole numbers go up to infinity. At some point when you were a child you started counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and then at some piont it hit you: This can go on forever!!! That was an insight.
Insights are often quite ordinary.
I remember vividly when I was a kid the moment when I realized why a penis gets hard. It was a massive epiphany: "Oh, it needs to be hard to fit inside a hole!!! Wow! Of course!"
That was quite an insight!
Nothing is obvious until you have an insight about it.
Your birth was an insight. One day you had the insight: "Oh, I exist!" And on that day you came into being as a human.
Insight is a mysterious thing. Which is why we call this mysticism.

When I speak of contemplation, it includes conceptual understanding. Be careful about reduce contemplation to "just sitting in silence". That is not contemplation, that is meditation. Which is great, but not the same thing as what I described in my latest contemplation video.
When you question something like "What is science?" that is CONCEPTUAL! Just sitting in silence will not result in a deep understanding of how science works, for example.
Be careful about boiling contemplation down to being in a nondual state.
One way to think of contemplation is that it is a way of cleaning up and clarifying your conceptual understanding. Which can be very valuable in and of itself. Without contemplation the mind is very confused and murky.
Be careful, people can use the word "contemplation" to mean very different things.

Meditation requires hardcore practice to get serious results. Most people who meditate will never get nondual states because that usually requires industrial-grade levels of meditation. It's very easy to waste years meditating ineffectively, doing weak versions of meditation.
Also, not all people have the same level of spiritual atunement. For some people meditation is easy and they don't need a lot of it to get big results. But this is not most people.
Psychedelics are far more effective for nondual insights and states. So yeah, doing some higher dose trips will definitely get you a taste of what you're after.
But as far as your daily practice I'd say, either upgrade your technique to something more stringent, or switch to Kriya Yoga. I find Kriya far more effective than meditation.
To get serious results from meditation usually requires doing hardcore week-long retreats and 1000s of hours of meditation.
I'm one of those people for whom meditation is not that effective. For meditation to be effective you must develop laser-focused one-pointed concentration. Watch my video: Meditation vs Concentration.
I've met people who have done 20 years of Vipasanna but still don't know what enlightenment is. This is actually the norm.
Infinity is a very radical state of consciousness. Very few human beings are capable of it without serious practice or outside means like psychedelics.
If you want to experience the highest levels of human consciousness, schedule a 5-MeO retreat. It will be worth the hassle and it will motivate you to meditate more.

No, it's ACTUAL dying. It's just that your paradigm shifts so much that you realize you were dead the whole time.
The way to face that fear is with an overwhelming trust in Truth. You surrender to Truth until reality collapses and you just die. At the moment of death, you discover Nirvana. A peace and stillness the likes of which no human mind can imagine. It kills you with its beauty. It is infinite peace.
Try to grasp it right now! You -- the thing which is conscious of all experience -- is death. You're dead right now. You just don't realize it. Death is conscious of life. Take a close look, if you dare

There's only one thing, really: consciousness.
Are you actually being conscious while you're meditating? How conscious?
If you're thinking, you're not being conscious. If you're falling asleep, you're not being conscious. If you're lost in a day dream, you're not being conscious. If you're mechanically executing a technique some guru gave you, you're not being conscious. If you're whining and bitching and moaning about having to meditate, you're not being conscious. If you're waiting for the timer to ring, you're not being conscious. If you're eagerly sitting there waiting for enlightenment to strike, you're not being conscious. If you're bored, you're not being conscious. If you're suffering and struggling and ready to quit, you're not being conscious. Just pick one technique and go with it for at least a month. Then evaluate your progress. Don't evaluate your progress daily, but monthly.

It's been over 100 years since quantum mechanics has proven to you that that wall is made mostly out of empty space. And the little sub-atomic particles which are there are not particles at all, but clouds of potential -- fields. And what are fields? Nothing. And when you're not looking at that wall, it exists in a state of superimposition: both existing and not-existing at the same time.
So even your very own materialist science has disproven you.
But of course you never bothered to really contemplate your own materialist science, nor has your friend. Because you don't really about understanding reality, you are lazy and sloppy. All you care about is your survival.

Yes indeed. Moreover, the entire present moment is arising from nothing and dying into nothing every moment.
Which is why mindfulness meditation is so effective. It allows you to be directly conscious of this as it's happening in real time. That's super powerful. It's as close to REAL as you can get. You can observe thoughts, or birds chirping, or body sensations arising.

You have to be very careful about biased selection.
People certainly do become enlightened using those methods, but less than 1%. How do you account for the other 99% for whom the methods do not work? Just saying they are lazy is not a good enough explanation.
The people who get enlightened using those techniuques are the ones who are already highly predisposed to it. You must be highly predisposed already just to do the practices seriously. Don't discount that.
Training is important, but also not sufficent.
You can train a donkey all you want but it will never reach the deepest levels of consciousness because of its fundamentally limited physiology.
Ditto for humans.
Shinzen Young proves my point. I do not consider him to have reached the deepest levels of consciousness, and he's been at it for 40 years.
Sure, he has gotten a lot better. But he does not understand the deepest mechanics of God. And he probably never will without better neurotransmitters.
The Buddha very clearly also had supernatural talent. Those talents just lay dormant until he left to be a monk.
Just the decision to give up his kingdom and become a full time monk was already an extraordinary act which could only have been made by a spiritually advanced person.
Stories say that the Buddha tried various yogic methods and aced them all within a few years. Clearly a sign of supernatural talent.
Be careful not to misunderstand my teachings.
Life comes in a spectrum of spiritual abilities, from bacteria to kangroos to humans to aliens to God itself.
Clearly a kangaroo is not going to fathom the depths of God no matter how much training. Why? Because of its physiological limits. It is too limited. Humans are better equipped. But still basically not good enough to fathom all of consciousness without augmentation. Humans lie all across the spectrum of consciousness. Some of us are totally retarded while others are Buddhas. This is certainly not explainable by lack of training, although training is often necessary to actualize our full potential. But what your full potential is, is highly constrained by physiology.
Also, I am speaking about a lot more here than enlightenment. Consciousness is not merely about enlightenment. There is a width as well as a depth to it. Very few people explored the full width or depth alone, let alone both at once. So just saying, "But Leo, person X is enlightened" doesn't mean much. That is not a nuanced enough understanding of the spiritual terrain.

@Lynnel You did good. Some important insights there.
Now you should be able to appreciate my Reality Is A Strange Loop video.
More trips are required to answer the questions this trip of yours raised.
Yes, mushroom trips can be quite twisted and difficult to make sense of. Other psychedelics like LSD or 5-MeO-DMT are clearer.
The best way to escape thought loops is to change your state or physical location. Just going into a different room can be enough to break out of a bad thought loop, or going outside, or eating a snack, or turning on some silly music and dancing around for a few minutes.
You gotta learn to shift your state. Meditation is also very helpful. If you're good at meditation you should be able to just silence the mind and its thoughts.
And when all else fails: just SURRENDER

@Schahin Practically speaking you can make choices and steer your life. Using your intention properly is critical to personal and spiritual development. You are the CEO of your life. God has delegated this power to you, so use it well.

@Schahin No, I would not call anything destiny. Humans exercise a tiny portion of God's Free Will.
God has infinite Free Will. But also all of that Will is fully put towards actualizing Love. So in a weird strange loopy sense, God has no choice but to actualized Infinite Love. Then again, God freely chooses Infinite Love. But then again that is because God is so Infinitely Intelligent that it would never choose anything less. Which means it cannot be anything but Love. And so it goes, round and round in a vicious circle. As it must, because free will vs destiny is another one of those pesky dualities which must eventually collapse.
Contemplate this: what is the difference between free will and destiny?
Eventually you'll see that the two poles must meet and become one.
This issue is analogous to the wave/particle duality in quantum mechanics. The true nature of light is that it's not one or the other but has features of both. Likewise with free will and destiny.

Why?
You have to consider than even with your difficulties you might still be way ahead of most people on the planet.
Just because you struggle with learning calculus doesn't mean you don't have a massive leg up on a donkey trying to learn calculus.
Being talented or gifted doesn't mean life is easy. Probelms and challenges are always relative, so no matter how capable you are you will face challenges which will bend you to your limit.
A donkey can carry 1000 lbs on his back before it breaks, you cannot. The donkey has you beat there. The donkey might look at you struggling to carry 200 lbs and laugh to himself, "What a whim!" But if you put 2000 lbs on the donkey his back will break. So the donkey is not free of struggle. Donkeys get more loaded up because they are expected to carry more than humans.
If you observe nature carefully you will see that every physiological structure has its strengths, weaknessess, and breaking points. That is the nature of form. Every form has its limits.
Form also always comes at the cost of flexibility. The more formed you are, the less flexible you are. Only God itself has infinite flexibility.
Think of an object which is infinitely flexible. That's God! Ta-da! Notice, it must have no form.

No, it can't.
Siblings are often raised in similar environments by similar parents and teachers yet they can come out very differently.
One of the greatest unsolved mysteries of developmental psychology and spirituality is why some children and young adults advance through the stages so much faster than others. Practice and environment are certainly factors, but not the most important factor.
Past lives are a good explanation here.
Most people do not even care about metaphysics. Just to care about metaphysics already requires a certain type of mind/personality. I have cared about metaphysics from the very beginning. Without that, I would be just some regular dude flipping burgers at McDonalds. I'm not a gifted meditator but my metaphysical curiosity is through the roof and came built into my brain from birth. I did nothing to deserve it. At least in this life. Maybe I did something in a past life to earn it. I dunno. Or maybe I just won the genetic lottery. Out of 7 billion humans, surely some will be born will exceptional metaphysical curiosity. Humans are not minted in a factory like widgets. We have unique gifts.
It's important that we be honest and acknowledge any gifts we may have. We also have unique weaknesses.

Spiritually gifted folk. You can meet them in various spiritual circles. Healers, psychics, masters, yogis, sages, prodigies, shamans, witches, channelers, saints, etc.
It's a combination of factors: diligence, discipline, willpower, passion, focus ability, existential curiosity, openmindedness, baseline level of consciousness, appropriate personality type, and more.
Notice, it's much easier to stick with a technique when is produces immediate significant results. Some people sit down to meditate and start having mystical experiences within days or weeks. This of course makes it much easier to stick with the habit compared to a person who meditates for 3 years and doesn't have a single mystical experience.
I've met people who've sat down for one weekend, did 2 days of self-inquiry and awakened. That's totally unusual results. The average person can self-inquiry for 5 years and still not awaken.
And it has to be this way. Otherwise half the people on the planet would be awake, but less than 0.0001% are. So you need some explanation for why that is. The explanation cannot just be that they're lazy or uninformed.

He would likely discover new realms, depths, and aspects of consciousness.
They certainly take you beyond what would be natural for most humans. Of course even then there are still limits to what the body/mind can handle. Even the strongest psychedelic does not totally free you of human form.
Some humans are like naturally high all the time because their brain chemistry is that way. This is quite rare, but still, not that rare. You can find such people.
They probably are somewhat gifted. But also, the psychedelic catalyses that by 100x-1000x. Which would be hard to do any other way.
A psychedelic is similar to Jesus spending 40 days in the desert with no food or the Buddha sitting under the tree for 2 weeks straight without moving. Only it happens much faster and easier, not requiring so much suffering.

Is a bird outside in nature free or not?
Seems free, but it is also extremely limited.
It's important to understand the limits of a bird. It would be madness to try to ask the bird to solve calculus equations. Likewise it would be madness to try to ask a human to hatch an egg.
An important part of growing up is learning your limits. Paradoxically acknowledging one's limits can be liberating, as one then surrenders to them and stops trying to act in some loftier, idealized way.
Telling a child who's not suited for math to be good at math would traumatize the child and ruin his self-esteem because he will always feels inferior and not understand why. He will then blame himself for being defective or inadequate when in fact he's just suited to other things.

Many of us who are interested in spirituality knows about Shinzen Young and his skill in meditation. He has gone through some horrific intensities in Japan and done 100 days in isolation type of practices very early on in his meditation career. 
I've talked to Leo about him and he definitely acknowledges his meditation expertise. But Leo also told me that his insights in sensory experience, perception and materialism is still not fully matured. He also said that all spiritual masters have certain shortcomings and lack of insight into certain facets of awakening. 
I definitely agree with Leo on this. I think it is a wise claim about the nature of spiritual attainments. 
But if there is one thing you can learn from Shinzen is that his earlier experiences as a child is certainly a case study for people who think that spiritual talent is a big deal in this work. Especially that this idea that spiritual talent severely limits your rate, capacity and potential to grow spiritually regardless of how much you practice. This is not true. 
Here is Shinzen's early experiences as a child prior to meditation taken directly from his own article:
https://www.shinzen.org/meet-my-mom/
'I have very little natural ability or natural inclination towards meditation. In early life I was unusually wimpy, whiny, and fussy. Also, I was perennially impatient. On top of that, I had a proclivity to be destructive, including towards myself (when I’d get frustrated, I’d bang my head on the sidewalk). I was also pretty mean (just ask my brother).
I actually like for people to know what a poor meditation candidate I am based on the tendencies of my early life. I take it as a positive. If a person like me can be successful, anyone can be successful.'
Now, anyone who has this sort of childhood can peg themselves spiritually untalented.
Shinzen could have thrown in the towel and say:
'Fuck this Japanese meditation torcher. I'll go back to America and focus on my Buddhist studies. I guess I'm untalented spiritually. I won't get anywhere even if I practice hard. Stream entry is way above my pay grade.'
Imagine where he'd end up now if he made that decision back then. 
 This work is more about practice, diligence and effort than spiritual talent. Spiritual talent decides where you'll start initially. It also decides how joyful the process might be at first. But it can't decide where you'll end up as long as you apply effort and diligence.
Spiritual talent is one's degree of ability to attain both samadhi and spiritual insights (no-self, emptiness etc.) with relative ease. Some people's personalities, brain types and intentions are more in tune with spiritual attainments and high states of concentration. These people start at a higher baseline than other meditators.
Again, don't get me wrong here. I don't posit that spiritual talent doesn't exist. It is just not a show stopper considering the vast importance of diligence and effort. 
For instance lack of spiritual talent won't get in the way of stream entry - first stage of permanent awakening and God realization. But talent might play a larger role when we are talking about 'God-Head' insight attainments. ( as Leo talks about)
Since we all have finite time and energy, we can only practice spirituality so much. In these extreme circumstances, DNA can also get into the picture. So one's lifetime may not be enough for some of the extra deep insights Leo talks about with 5 Meo DMT. To experience these insights naturally, talent can be the deciding factor since it changes at what baseline do you start the path.
But I think before we worry about these sort of things, we should take steps one at a time. First, develop the fundamental skills of meditation. Then get to your first permanent stage of awakening. You don't need spiritual talent for none of these. Diligence and practice will get you there. 
Don't limit yourself. 

My Mom was loosely religious. She read me Bible stories when I was young. My Dad was scientific/amoral/atheist.
My parents did not push any beliefs onto me. I was free to think as I liked.
I was a pretty firm atheist by middle school because Christian metaphysics seemed silly. But in high school I realized that atheism too was a position and technically groundless and unjustified. But still I assumed it was right because the origin of God was not explained by religion as I knew it back then.
I did not realize back then that it was possible for God to create itself.
Now I am able to explain how Christianity & God really work to my Mom. And she basically understands. At least conceptually.

@Schahin The difficulty has to do with how you define "you". A person who has never awoken cannot resolve the issue of will because he assumes he is real. That you is illusory. You must discover the Universal You. Then we can talk.
Ego assumes it is in control. But ego is illusory. So what then is actually in control? The Universal You.

I was sitting on the beach watching the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful out. The wind had blown the footsteps from the sand so all that was left down the whole coast was little rolling hills of white sand. The orange light from the sun reflected off the green water and glistened in the windows of the houses along the beach. Clear blue skies as far as you could see. I was trying to relax my mind and just become reality. I was looking down the beach at all the houses and condos in the distance and for a brief few moments it felt like my awareness encompassed everything that I could see ad it was all there NOW. It blew my fucking mind so much that after a few seconds I said to myself, "oh my god is this it!?". And then the feeling went away and I struggled to get it back. As soon as the thoughts came up I went back to the monkey chatter and lost the expanded awareness. It was frustrating as hell.
Does anybody else have moments like this when they feel their awareness zoom out into everything and get sucked back in by thoughts soon after? 

You seek Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi
That will take some serious enlightening.
If you have a cave nearby, might be a good idea to relocate there for a few years of meditatin'

@Spacious If you've already done 4 years of daily meditation, you're well on your way. Start applying more and more mindfulness to how your experience pleasure, so you start to grasp that is doesn't work. It never works. You're always left craving more.

@hirax Sounds like you're simply not socializing enough. Getting a guy to cold approach you during the day is pretty rare. Very few guys know how to pull that off, and they won't do it unless you're a stunner, or you live in a huge city like London, New York, L.A., etc. In a small city, guys suck at cold approach. And the ones who are good are scummy players, who you don't want.
All you gotta do is go out to a bar or club with some girlfriends once a week. You'll have tons of guys hit you up if you dress sexy and make eye contact with them.
If you're sitting at home all night, how can anyone meet you?
If you want to stick with that lifestyle, you should get into online dating.
If you're still in college, go to some frat/sorority parties.
Also, if you happen to see a guy you like, you can always start flirting with him. Don't wait for guys to do all the work. Most guys are scared shitless of you. Give the ones you like a cute puppy-dog look. They should come running. As a girl you don't need much fancy moves. All you gotta say to a guy you like is something like, "Hey handsome, *wink*" or "Why haven't you come said Hi to me?, *wink*" Do it in a playful, non-needy manner.

@Outer Psychedelic trips can be long, lasting 6 to 12 hours. You will definitely get hungry during that time.
Yes, there is some appetite suppression when you're on the peak, but the peak doesn't last long. I always eat a bit during my longer trips.
The banana is eaten BEFORE the trip.
This is just silly. Are you saying fat people never get hungry?
Try not feeding a fat person for half a day and see how they feel.
I have less hunger issues being skinny than when I used to be fat. Fat people are often terrified of hunger. As though it will kill them.

@street19 Yes, it's frightening. But again, what have you got to lose?
Where do you start? Google your nearest monastery. They take new people all the time. Easy-peasy. I'd do it myself if I had nothing going for me.
A healthy environment can change a lot. It won't do the inner work for you, but it can put you on track so you can start doing the inner work.
Your only real problem is that you've lost touch with yourself, nature, and with BEing. Mainstream society has discombobulated you. That can fixed faster than you'd think if you really put your heart into it and exit mainstream society for a while.