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.

You're not getting it.
MONEY is the hierarchy!
Money means nothing without a hierarchy of wage slaves who will work for you to get your money.
There is no escaping society other than through death.
You can live alone in the woods but you will still be intimately tied into society regardless of how much money you have.
If you watch Life Below Zero you see just how badly people who live alone in the remote Alaskan wilderness depend on society to save their ass. They could not live otherwise.

In this work you are not after a "picture of reality" you are after pure reality itself, which means all picture must be discarded.
If you want pictures of reality, go study science. Inquiry is not about pictures. It's about BEING reality.
This notion you have of "reality" has to go. It's just a concept. Deconstruct it. What is this thing you call "reality"? Notice it's just an idea. What you see in your direct experience is prior to your notions of "reality".
Strip all knowing from the present moment until you are just left sitting in your room with no idea what anything is. Even remove the idea that you are alive, sitting in a room. Or that were ever born. Strip it all off! Try to get to pure raw sensation without any ideas or images of what it is. Don't worry about missing out on reality. Everything that is true is independent of interpretation or images in the mind.
The fact is, you do not know what anything is. Period. Try to get your mind to see this. Don't just think it, experience this not-knowing.
One of the biggest reasons you are stuck is because you have an image of "an external reality" in your mind. You are taking this image to be reality when it is not. This image must go.
Consider the possiblity that there is no such thing as external reality in the same way that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.

@How to be wise Very practically for your self-inquiry, start with the premise that only what is strictly in your experience is true.
Under this premise, your face does not exist unless you are looking at it. And even when you are looking at it in a mirror, it still is not "yours" or "a face" because those are concepts, not direct experience. Notice that under this premise even the notion of "Truth" is not real but conceptual. Notice further than even the notion "real" isn't real!
The first most important distinction to make is between concept/thought & actual experience.
But then inquire further.
By deconstructing your web of materialistic beliefs your experience will ultimately become recontextualized into Absolute Being.
The Absolute in none other than what is in your direct experience right now once you strip off all the concepts. But there are a lot of concepts to strip off. Way more than you can presently imagine.
Psychedelics will help you see the Truth directly. Which will then help self-inquiry and deconstruction.
Truth cannot be spoken because it is the the sum total of everything that is the case. You could say that Truth is the physical substrate of reality.
Be careful with trying to conceptualize or imagine Truth. All concepts and images take you away from Truth or Being.
See video: Grasping The Illusory Nature Of Thought.

@Ilya The brain's Default Mode Network is constantly operating in the background, generating your current level of consciousness. Your current level of consciousness is the problem. It must be broken out of. Just being "present" with your Default Mode Network running, doesn't break you out of ego. You're just present as ego.

Ok, I've been avidly meditating for three years now... I've noticed an inverse relationship between high states and low states of consciousness; I'm curious if anyone else has noticed similar effects. Prior to any meditation or consciousness work, I've noticed that my frontal cortex was (engaged) in life: every little detail felt so real and it was constantly vetting, interpreting, and synching information... However, as I've meditated, become more aware, I've become more of a passivist rather than an activist. For example, while driving, I now passively observed street signs, people, locations, but not actively download the information: I have become a passive observer rather than a diligent note taker--I hope that analogy made sense. 
When I become super present I experience "no mind" quite frequently. I will have absolutely no thoughts, attachment, or judgment to anything: I am a mere observer of consciousness. Spiritually, this is blissful and beautiful; pragmatically, it's troublesome... 
I used to be extremely witty, fast on my feet, and quick to recall details; now I'm absent minded and don't really care, lol. I'm 20 years old, I'm thinking maybe it's best I take a break from this whole spiritual thing until my later years in life... I need my sharp, active, and engaged brain now and until I'm 50: I think it's selfish to call everything an "illusion" and opt out of life--all though I understand this paradigm. I still want to make money, build a family, and set my kids up for a good life. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed the meditative side effects? 

There are no fractals unless your are tripping balls.
Samadhi is identical to whatever you're seeing right now. Same stuff is seen, just under a different context.
Samadhi is ALWAYS the case. There can't not be samadhi. The only problem is that your mind is giving your present experience a false dualistic context which makes you unaware of the ever-present samadhi.
Look at your hand for a long time without any thoughts. That is basically samadhi.

@Gerhard I have to slowly build up my yoga because I have some issues with chronically blocked sinuses and sore throat. So yoga has proven challenging for me.
Sure, lots of yoga can work. You just gotta build up to it. And I did not come at this enlightenment thing from a yoga background, I came at it from a self-inquiry background.
But also, keep in mind, a state of Samadhi is not enlightenment.

A) Awakening to Truth does not necessarily end all suffering or pain.
B) Chemical addictions (like alcohol) can be very stubborn and will not change by seeing Truth alone.
C) There are many degrees of awakening. While Alan Watts clearly had some degree of awakening, I doubt he had Buddha-like abiding nondual awareness or a perpetual state of Nirvana.
D) Awakening alone WILL NOT transform or develop the self. It will not clear all the chakras, all the bad habits, it will not fix all the mind's neuroses, it will not make you a good person, and it will not produce emotional mastery or life mastery. Many psychological problems can be distinct from existential understanding.
E) After awakening, life must go on. Boredom can still set in and alcohol could be a nice distraction for some. After all, what is there to do, really? After awakening there is no need to do anything. There is not even the need to do good or be good.
F) You have no control over anything. Whatever happens is inevitable. Alan Watts had no ability to stop anything. Whatever the universe has in store for you, is what will happen, and you are surrendered to that.
Basically, stop expecting enlightenment to make you superman or a saint, or to fix all your Earthly problems.

@Anna1 That is wrong. EVERYTHING is Brahman. Your nonduality is incomplete.
If you have 2 things, that is duality!
The distinction between Brahman and world is something Brahman (You) is imagining.
All difference is God's imagination at work. So if you see a difference between things, you can be sure that you created that difference.
It would be wise of you guys to listen to what is being said here.

This will not fly at all.
You need TOTAL superhuman focus to breakthrough.
You have not even begun the work yet. You are kidding yourself still.
You can keep doing passive inquiry for 1000 years and not awaken. So be very realistic with yourself about how you are wasting your time. You have to be brutally honest with yourself about distrations.
Make a clear distinct between when you are seriously inquiring vs just screwing around.

@leintdav000 It's a phase. In the end you should be much more functional by being conscious.
Of course shutting off the mind disrupts a lot of egoic survival schemes, goals, motivations, and manipulations.
You're not realizing yet that the goal of spirituality is surrender of all reality and practicality. You cannot be liberated so long as you're worried about being practical.
After awakening you can pick some of that practicality back up, but while you are working towards awakening the point is to surrender more and more of it.
Yes, this interferes with becoming successful. But the point is that success is a never-ending cycle of suffering.
But there's also nothing wrong with working on success if you feel you need to. Remember, plan out your life in chapters and phases. If you're young you might want to spend 5 or 10 years working on success before you go heavy into awakening work.
So get clear about what you want and then pursue that decisively.
Of course the devil would say that
That line of reasoning is precisely how the ego maintains itself. You must challenge that if you wish to awaken.
The selfish one is you. You are so selfish you cannot even see your own reasoning as devilry.

Search "George Carlin and bullshit".
He's got some great examples of social bullshit.
But of course that's just the obvious tip of the ice berg.
 

@Javfly33 You're unable to figure it out because the truth is so radical:
You have imagined absolutely everything about your life, including your birth, your parents, your memories, the Earth, the solar system, the 21st century, animals, trees, emotions, thoughts, science, fiction, your death, the past, the future, etc.
And you are imagining right this moment that you are not imagining all of that but that it is "real".
So you're manufacturing all of reality while being in denial about it.
If you weren't doing this, you could not exist and there would be no world or other people. So you cannot stop doing it, lest you die.
The truth is you were never born. You merely imagine you were.
Understanding all of this would give you something akin to a psychotic breakdown. But it is called awakening. When you are fully awake, you can hardly understand how you ever believed you were born. Since birth is just imagination.
You are God.
Ta-da!

When the world disappears, what problems are left to solve?
Problems only occur within the relative domain, as a function of survival. They are important to solve, but only from the relative domain. From the Absolute nothing needs solving.
The most powerful way of solving a problem is by realizing it's not even a problem.

Just be ware that many of those negative trip reports can be very misleading. For me the experience is purely positive and pleasant.
Dosages on PsychonautWiki seem to be pretty accurate. Rectal doses are similar to smoked dosages! Making it very potent.
For me, rectal doses go like this:
Light: 20mg-30mg Medium: 30mg-40mg Heavy: 50mg+ But I'm pretty sensitive to all psychedelics, so you may need to dose higher.
Your starting dose should be no higher than 20mg to get a feel for the body load and vibrations.
With rectal administration the trip will start within 15 minutes, hit strong by 25 minutes, and last strongly until 2h30m. After effects tend to linger for quite a long time, at least a few more hours but you'll be out of the breakthrough zone by 2h30m.
Be very cautious with anything above 50mg. It will melt your reality.
DPT does not seem to come in any other form but HCl. The freebase version of DPT is oily and not suitable for storage from what I hear.
Oh, and DPT HCl refuses to dissolve in water at all. You can still make a suspension, but the actual DPT particles will not dissolve. This isn't a problem per se. It absorbs into the body just the same. But emptying the oral syringe is a bit trickier because sometimes the particles tend to stay in the back of the syringe requiring a bit more effort to deliver the full dose.
How To Plug Psychedelics video:
https://www.actualized.org/insights/how-to-plug-psychedelics

I will soon be renaming this thread to: The DPT Mega-Thread
This will be our go-to thread about DPT related questions, tips, techniques, etc.
As usual, no sourcing questions.
Here are some good reference links:
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DPT https://erowid.org/chemicals/dpt/ https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/dpt-subthread-dpt-dosage-methods-of-administration.399044/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipropyltryptamine https://www.reddit.com/r/researchchemicals/comments/8y7k3j/dpt_dipropyltryptamine/