For that, please check the book. Really, it would be worth it.
Noting and labeling is waaay to slow, among other things. If you hit a baseball, and would have to note/label what you are doing, that would take way too long, multiple tenths-of-a-second up to seconds. The ball would be long gone. To get good, one has to hit the ball without any thinking.
And to learn to do that really well, one gets coached for every miniature-movement of pitching, and how that grows and develops. Zen and noting/labeling is like: Just hit the ball. And even if you hit the ball, how to hit it really far? Or how to hit all balls (even subtle separate-self thoughts/feelings). Like, how to induce really Awakened/Nondual States? Because that happens only with a high speed cutoff of all (even the subtle separate-self-arisings/thoughts/feelings) That needs a good coaching system.
Noting and labeling is still thinking, and thinking is way too slow. Like, really way to slow. A very important aspect in my description-post was: High-Speed Search into the nature and emergence of concepts (or rather, into the unfindability of anything solid in their nature, or finding consciousness/empty Awareness/Reality/Suchness in each and every thought arising, and into the temporal phenomenology of their appearnce). To first realize what that nature of thoughts/concepts is, the book needs quite some time. And only realizing that nature correctly, fast enough and how it emerges temporally, is what actually dissolves the thought fast enough, without causing any other fast/subtle thoughts/feelings in its wake. The mindstream is really tricky here, really fast and subtle hard to spot separate-self thoughts, feelings and sensations.
So how is this High Speed Search/Cut Off task done, for example at a certain stage: see the quote below. The time-aspect of emergence, staying, disappearing of thoughts is examined. NOT the content, but the temporal structure. That is totally different than noting & labeling. Noting & Labeling is thought-based, content-based, not structure based how it all emerges in the mindstream from a temporal perspective.
And that temporal thought-emerging process then changes with practice dramatically.
Also, I just scratched the surface of the stages and methods.
What most meditation-methods do is like: Here is New York, there is LA, drive west. What Mahamudra does is give you a map for each interstate-crossing. Literally. And just driving west normally ends in a cul-de-sac, meditation gets impossible boring or needs endless will, because one sees zero progress and no changes.
I had to read that book (the important passages 10-20 times) to get it, and had to align it with my ongoing practice-experience. It needs some meditation-experiences to understand what the different stages are talking about. Meditation experience generates new meditation-experience-referents, with which gets worked then in the next stages.
I can not cut down a 600 page book into short posts, just give some little previews and differences of what is innovative in this system and not found somewhere else in other systems.
Selling Water by the River
 
"PS: To give you just a small taste of the level of technical precission of the stage description of what happens. And what the meditators of most other systems only learn coincidentally and as unconsciousness competence (they wouldn't be able to tell WHAT precicly they do, or changed doing). And that is just one change of many on the path of that system:
The Mind-Moments mentioned in the quote below can be for example thougt-arising-events.
Brown, Pointing out the Great Way, chapter Skill of Reckognition:
"At this stage of meditation the practitioner is likely to experience a series of shifts in the way events seem to arise and pass away in the mental continuum, as if the temporal organization of events itself were changing. Four such rearrangements occur in stages:
(1) Awareness of the initial phase of arising only. Mind-moments arise so rapidly that one appears to arise just as the previous one ceases. The practitioner is aware of only the moment events arise and is not aware of their duration or cessation. This awareness of the immediate arising is expressed in Pema Karpds phrase "at the moment it is born," as well as in Tashi Namgyel's phrase "happens to arise."
(2) The tripartite unit of arising, staying, and ceasing (byung, gnas, song). During the next stage the practitioner notices not only the initial moment of arising (byung) but also some discernible duration (gnas; literally, "staying") of the event, followed by its cessation (song). The entire unit—arising, staying, ceasing—constitutes a single discrete mental event, irrespective of the category of mental content.
(3 )At the next stage, the practitioner experiences another shift in temporal experience, characterized by awareness of only moment-by-moment arising and passing away (skye 'gag). Mind-moments are experienced to be very short-lived without much discernible duration. They arise and pass very quickly. Tashi Namgyel calls this stage "momentary arising" (thol ba).
[Comment from me: and here at (3) the magic can start: Thought arising get faster and faster when one looks at the temporal structure of their emergence and into their essence/nature, but they are cut off immediately (without much descernible duration). It takes a long time to get there.
When at that stage, thoughts that normally elaborate over several seconds show up at once, one "knows" their full content before they even elaborate in the mindstream over several seconds, and can cut them off immedeately.
That gives a complete new understanding how the mind works at that high-speed-level, and is the beginning of Awakening if cut-off in sufficient speed so that the NO thoughts elaborate but just emerge as capsules. Then, they start to stop emerging for some time. And if they emerge, they are different. It also starts to show Infinite Consciousness as timeless always here reality, Existence itself. Not as idea, but as experience]. And that skill then gets developed over several more stages.]
(4) During the final stage the practitioner comes to realize that the idea that discrete events arise and pass over time is itself a mere construct of the ordinary mind. All distinctions concerning the seeming temporal unfolding of mental events are found to be empty, and the practitioner develops a new realization of the mind's real nature as always here (skye med). The first three experienced rearrangements in the temporal unfolding of the mental events pertain to the skill exercises, while the fourth pertains to the subsequent yoga of unelaboration. [Outcome is that each and any thought-arising can be cut, or alternatively watched in a lucid manner] Although the three parts of the skill meditation are said to be experienced in stages (rim pa), this distinction is not always explicit since the actual root-text instructions are typically given in a combined form."
And the insight described here is the High-Speed-Cut-Off Searchtask into the Unfindability of the essence of thoughts, which then evaporate. And also looking closely HOW thought emerge, stay, cease, and what is always right here. That boosts Awakened/nondual States if done correctly. And also gives the first intuition of the always here, or eternal/immortal nature of consciousness/reality, not as idea, but as direct understanding.

But if one can access the Absolute at will (the visual field as boundless timeless infinite nondual mere appearance), switch off the self-contraction/separate-self (and its suffering included) at will if it dares to raise its ugly head again, and STAY in that Ultimate Impersonal Reality... that says something about (to use your words) how conscious "one" is.
Well, you can turn it around it all the ways you want. The fact that Ultimate Reality is not stable accessible and suffering continues is the hallmark of the psychedelic-afficionados, from all I have seen so far.
How come Infinitely intelligent Reality doesn't let the psychedelic afficionado rest blissfully in True Nature? Why does suffering not stop in that case? Because Infinitely Intelligent Ultimate Reality doesn't want that (nor could it, even if "it" wanted) a not fully transcended ego/separate-self stays there blissed out and proclaims "that is the highest". IT is IMPERSONAL Infinite Consciousness. With Impersonal in bold letters. And until that is delivered by fully transcending and killing the separate-self-arisings in normal life, there is practice of transcedence and "dying to the lower identites" to be done. The suffering is what pulls a separate-self back to its True Nature, Empty Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, or Reality itself (including the manifest show in a nondual way).
Honestly, if there ever has been one big warning sign dangling on top of all of that proclaimed "highest Awakeninsg n+1", it is what described in the paragraph above. Suffering continues. And Reality will make you suffer until you get that.
Cruel game? Not really, no one gets left behind halfway up the mountain, in the suffering of the claws of the self-contraction of the separate-self, until that is fully transcended and gone. And going exploring the Multiverse in ever "higher" Awakenings ."Higher" into what? The Absolute can not be higher or lower, only form/manifestation/appearance/arisings WITHIN IT. So its higher Awakenings into ever more relative appearing arisings, not the Absolute. And that  will just prolong that suffering.
Please prove me wrong. If you don't shut down the show here, we all are in the prime seats to watch it.
Anyway, bon voyage!
Water by the River

Yes. As a very experienced meditator with longterm-practice and seasoned in Awakening one can do two things
a) completely shut off the thought-flow: A high-speed cut-off at the beginning stage of a thought-emergence. The thought doesn't look like a thought in this earliest emergence phase of it, more like a ripening "seed" that is cut off. Lots of training until that point... And to continue that high-speed-cutoff of emerging thought "capsules" can stop the thought-flow completely. Until having had it, hard to imagine.
b) second, and much more important: Staying lucid while thinking, "riding" with ones awareness on the thought-stream. Pretty impossible to describe, stems partly from the ability to do a) . That skill allows to carry the meditation/awareness into daily life.
It also causes (due to its momentum in daily life more so than a), since one cant act/work without a thought flow running) the Awakened States of nonduality/one with the visual field, mere appearance (solidity of visual field removed), timelessness (time is imagined right here in THAT), boundlessness (any limit would be imagined in THAT. All of the states that psychedelics also cause. But "without the pill".
And it also it cuts the separate-self-contraction in the head which just dissolves, opening up a flow of bliss that is so strong to just overpower the suffering that the remaining separate-self tends to cause in cycles.
These are "hard" states of consciousness, not some wishful thinking or some soft states.
The separate-self/ego main-building block is regular suffering/being unsatisfied, rejecting or wanting something that is not present in that state, seeking it, getting it or not getting it, and suffering again. 
Water by the River

You (capital Y) are the whole Infinite Reality (imagined body, imagined appearances, imagined everything n+1). With nothing outside of it, because that would be an imagined arising too. Any boundary separiting IT from an imagined other IT would be an imagined arising, an appearing phenomenon. Infinite.
Try to imagine everything gone, including thinking: NOTHINGNESS. Not big, not small, just NOTHINGNESS. A vast infinite Nothingness, that is not even vast, because there is no 3D-space or anything (no objects/arisings). Similiar to Deep Sleep. YOU are still there. YOU awake every morning after having been there. You already know that you can be totally something/somebody else in dreams, and have totally forgotten all the past you imagine right now to be your "real" human self.
But IT is not Nothingness like nothing there at all, but Nothingness with the POTENTIAL for sentience as soon as anything is imagined, and with Infinite Potential to imagine ANYTHING within it, n+1.
Imagine a water pistol pops up in this Nothingness (see example Massaro, Conversations with a Skepctic):
Then you have a) an imagined appearance (water pistol) and b) "something" perceiving it, the subject. Or just the perceptions of the water pistal in case no separates self is imagined/arises.  Just the waterpistol perceiving itself, perceptions perceiving themselves. Impersonal. Then you have a "world", and subject/object. So what are you then?
a) The Infinite Field  with anything that can possibly be imagined? Yes. Nondual/Totality/Oneness. The manifest/imagined side of Infinite Consciousness. Always changing, never stable, since no appearance/form lasts. NONE. But there is a constant: b) But even more so, you are that Nothingness that can be unaware of itself, Infinite Consciousness initially unaware of itself, but with the potential for sentience if something arises. The unmanifest side of Infinite Consciousness. The unchanging, Unborn and constant core of the True You/Reality itself. So empty that IT is the Abyss, Impersonal. NOTHINGNESS. But also Infinite Potential, since IT can imagine anything. and "Both"a) and b) is indivisible, nondual. Totally the same essence, ONE Reality. The Nothingness or the True You is already the essence/"substance" of every imagined arisings/phenomenon, including the water pistol, or all separate self arisings (they are all appearances within you). a nice book about that is Szyper, "Infinite Consciousness" And that is why with the Big Awakening/Big  Enlightenment, you
realize yourself to already be (and ever have been, ever will be) both totally Nothingness (no separate self arisings not transcended or spotted fast enough) and everything manifested/appearing. Its all One Infinite Reality, imagined in Infinite Consciousness/Mind, hovering empty appearances, hovering in You/Reality, perceptions perceiving themselves. What falls away (or are understood) are just the ignorant separate self arisings, that make you feel and think you are not the Infinite Totality, but this small body "moving" in it. You become Nothing(-ness), but also Everything. No longer a separate body-mind in a larger "universe", but all of that happening in You. To fully get it, you need
many small awakenings/Kenshos/Enligthenments (becoming gradually the empty infinite mere imagined appearances/nondual field), and a big awakening (Great Enlightenment, Basis Enlightenment, Great Satori) after you have become the whole infinite empty field, when you wonder who/what PERCEIVES that field. The One Hand clapping. That is when the last subtle layers of the separate self are suddenly seen through. Sudden Awakening. Its gradual until then, and sudden and unmistakenly with the last shift. Up to that shift, there are stages and higher awakenings. But the bug stops here. That is also why you never know with the smaller Awakenings (1) what the end of the ladder is.... and (2) you still suffer. And of course you can go exploring afterwards, but you already understand what You are and what Reality is when doing that. And how you fooled yourself before, with many different layers (imagined separate self, imagined past, imagined future, imagined anything n+1). The Real You is quite smart to fool itself in such a way.... ( : Tricky thing with the last shift is:
This last shift needs a fully empty or transended separate self, including very subtle layers of feeling/thinking... And that needs.... a lot of time in these nondual and empty states to get rid of any untranscended separate self arising. And these last separate self elements can be very tricky & subtle, needing familiarity with them to spot them, and a very fast speed of spotting and transcending/cutting them off in real time. And: You can't force it here with the usual meditation techniques (that came before this stage) of directing attention. Because who/what is doing the meditation? The separate self.... It has to be automized, so that the meditation does itself. No artificial activity of a separate self. Non-Meditation Yoga in the Mahamudra-System. Or alternatively, but not so efficient: "Bang your head against the wall" for several years with a Koan. That also works, but more brute-force-style and doesn't feel so nice... Or you win the genetic lottery, jump all of that, find yourself to be the Great Unborn... and have no clue how to get there since you jumped the journey. Ramana-style. The author of these lines wasn't lucky enough to win this lottery. But hey, the point of the ride is ride. Bon voyage!  ( :
"We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all." Kalu Rinpoche
Selling Water by the River

@Leo Gura @Consilience @Carl-Richard Peter Ralson's recent, in-depth answer on the topic states vs direct consciousness (from his recent August newsletter).

Hey guys,
 
I have been experimenting with a kriya yoga technique that I modified for 2 years, and I share it in the video.
 
I need help with how to use that state of consciousness in a more productive way. It takes you there super fast, it's super deep, let me know how it goes! 
 

Negative emotions indicate that your interpretation of reality is false. 
Enlightenment is the realization YOU are not the entity you think you are. You are not a thought. So when one believes thoughts about themselves or reality as a whole and interprets this in a way that is limited it will result in negative emotion. Solipsism is the attempt of the mind to grasp or own enlightenment. It feels horrific to do this. It's like trying to grasp onto a burning flame to own it. Only letting go will suffice, and will also allow the flame the oxygen it needs to burn on its own. You cannot understand deeper, think more to get out. You are already out. You can let go of the thoughts that hurt, then relax, and allow true insight to surface. 
https://www.actualityofbeing.com/aligning-thought-with-feeling
https://www.actualityofbeing.com/spheres

Men are pigs! I can say from experience it is true
Usually the nature of masculine is to be arrogant, brute, violent, toughnut. The nature of the feminine is to be soft, gentle, like a flower. Those are higher consciouness qualities overall.
It is sayed that buddha became a women when he became enlightened. That's methaphorical, it means he overcame his violent masculine nature and became like a flower. Women also have masculine nastiness in them btw.
❤️

Radically changing my diet, cutting out junk food Gym, exercise, losing weight Pickup, learning how to attract women, learning to socialize, developing a sense of humor Starting a biz, becoming financially independent. Learning marketing and sales. Figuring out my life purpose Reading basic self-help books and taking basic self-help and business/marketing courses Education in science, history, philosophy, psychology, etc. The core pillars for my Orange were:
Biz, pickup, gym, nutrition, education
Success in all the above will create a solid foundation for a good life.

“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
~Terence Mckenna

This isn't rocket science.
Look at what happened to the dodo birds.
All of your ancestors were rapists, murderers, and thieves. Because if they weren't they would have been raped, murdered, and robbed. Like the dodos.

The most selfless people were killed 10,000 years ago. We are all the descendants of the most selfish, greedy, horny, ruthless, manipulative, narcissistic, and delusional fucks who walked this Earth.
That about explains all our problems. Ta-daaa!

Everything Leo speaks in this video in regards to awakening and god i have personally encountered, the difference is I don't call it God or Love or Consciousness.  And I stopped giving them importances.
Awakening is the most extraordinary thing one can imagine yes it is absolutely mind blowing, so infinite that there is no more mind. No more levels consciousness. No more form or emptiness.  Even Awakenings and Realizations and even enlightenment itself are perceived to be the stuff of the dream. Of course all these "experiences" will make you shit in your pants, physically dying, being so blown away you're no longer human, and they are all encountered on the Path. But eventually they are all absorbed and transcended. 
The more ordinary the more Divine. The better way to put IT is that it transcends even the notion of extraordinary vs. ordinary. 
On no Self being a "minor" Realization: 
Temporary experience of no Self on meditation or psychedelic is not the same as Realization of no Self. Realization is deeper than a transcendental experience and both are "minor" sure.   
But the permanent dropping away of self/Self is on another dimension altogether. After self/Self drops away there is nothing but God and Infinity 24 7.  There is a quantum difference between a self perceiving God in the center vs. permanently dropping away of any center or vintage point, and there's only Godhead Comprehending and Creating Itself ad Infinite. 
Now I can only speak from personal experience but before self/Self permanently drops, even the most mind blowing experiences still comes from a self.  If you had a Realization or an "experience", then you find yourself shifting back to separated state then it's a temporary experience of a self and not a Realization, let along the permanent dropping away of center, which is beyond any teachings of contemporary Neo Advida or most mainstream or new age spirituality teachings. In fact it's beyond spirituality altogether. 
There's absolutely no reference point to the "experience" of permanently dropping away of self/Self.  There is no words to describe it.  It robs everything away from you, even Consciousness itself and all of your previous Realization.   There is no perceiver, no agency, no center at all times.  The enlightened self sitting on his throne of Nirvana is the final layer of the dream.
edit: Buddha didn't teach Absolute Self. He taught no-self AND No-Self, which is the middle way, the merging and transcendence of Being/Non-Being, Absolute Infinity and Absolute Nothingness. But No Self IS True Self, so let's not get bogged down to terminologies.  But I see way too many people on the Path getting stuck in the identification to an Absolute Self. 
Cessation is 0 consciousness. Complete black out.  Which makes this Insight extremely valuable because non existence is in a totally different order than existence. No consciousness is in a totally different order than levels of consciousness. YET they're also exactly the same because 2 sides of the extremes eventually cancel each other out and become 0 when they meet as death is Love/life.
But I'm still on the fence whether it's necessary for awakening. In my direct experience it's the ultimate no experience that truly truly re-wires the brain permanently.  It takes 5 to 10 years of meditation to get your first cessation. After awakening you can get 10 cessations in 30 mins of sitting.  (What I'm more interested in is permanent shifts. It doesn't matter how many awakenings one's had, but if moment to moment perception isn't permanently altered, say shifting from 720 to 1080 to 4K 360 and 8k 360 or the self dissolving from solidity to liquid to air, then there is no Realization).
Enlightenment is not a state of consciousness. It's 0 if you want to put a number on the dial, which also makes it Infinite and in-quantifiable.  All "levels of consciousness" belongs to the dream and are the by products of "peeling away of separation/conditions".  Enlightenment is deeper than consciousness or even awareness.  
As krishnamurti said "The moment you are aware of Awareness, you are not aware of Awareness"
It's deeper than total unity and Oneness. 
As Adyshanti said, you eventually "wake up out of Oneness".
You could say it's the _______ prior to unity and all states of consciousness. Prior to and it's what manifest the dial on the awakening scale.
Shinzen young describes the path as going from surface level consciousness to Source. And many people on the Path got diverted from going directly to Source to sidetracking themselves to the content/manifestation of Source mid path (although Source is Appearance. Content IS context.  But this cannot be Realized unless one's abiding  in Source as Source). 
But what happens AFTER Source is Realized? Sure one can continue to explore. There is no end to the Infinitude of Reality. But as I've emphasized many times, there is a event horizon you cross before and after enlightenment.  Ramana Maharishi and many other sages on that level all point to the fact that enlightenment itself has no levels. You're either there or you're not.  And it's not a process happening anywhere. The question of whether or not it's a brain/mind State becomes completely irrelevant.
 

Yes essentially, insight or vipassana meditation is different from shamatha/samadhi/concentration
Insight is about noticing the three characteristics in your sensatory experience,  time and time again
Shamatha/concentration is about cultivating joy/happiness (piti/sukha) by taking a meditation object like the breathe, and letting go of your sensatory experience, by noticing how good it feels, and an inverse relationship arises: the more you let go of your sensatory experience, the more joy and happiness and peace arises which creates a positive feedback loop all the way through the Jhanas

It's impossible for the ego to imagine this.
To fully surrender to God's Will is a radical and mystical thing. It almost feels like your body and mind are taken over by the Universe. Universal Intelligence courses through your veins and you align to this Intelligence such that every muscle in your body and every thought in your mind becomes informed by Divine Perfection.
This would require nuking all sense of personal self and personal agenda. Then your only agenda would be the Universe's agenda. And you don't need to know the precise agenda, because you know it's always Love. And then your life is just like surfing atop an endless wave of Love. All your decisions become aligned with the highest Good for All. God takes over your body and mind and you become its tool.
But for that to happen there would have to be zero trace of self. You could not have your own personal desires or agenda any more.

“When you make the two one, and the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and an image in place of an image, then shall you enter.“ - Jesus 

Self enquiry Practise
Beginners in self enquiry were advised by Sri Ramana to put their attention on the inner feeling of i and to hold that feeling as long as possible.
They would be told that if their attention was distracted by other thoughts they should revert to the awareness of the I thought, when ever they became aware that their attention had wondered. He suggested various aids to assist this process. One could ask ones self: Who am I? Or where does this I come from?  But the ultimate aim was to be continuously aware of the I, which assumes that it is responsible for all the activities of the body and the mind.
In the early stages of practice the attention to the feeling I is a mental activity, which takes the form of a thought or a perception as the practice develops the thought I gives way to a subjectively experienced feeling of I. When this feeling ceases to connect and identify with thoughts and objects it completely vanishes.
What remains is an experience of being in which the Sense of individuality has temporarily ceased to operate.  The experience may be intermittent at first but with repeated practice it becomes easier and easier to reach and maintain. When self enquiry reaches this level there is an effortless awareness of Being, in which individual effort is no longer possible since the I who makes the effort has temporarily ceased to exist.
It is not self realisation, since the I thought periodically reasserts itself but is the highest level of practice.  Repeated experience of this state of Being weakens and destroys the Vasana, mental tendencies which cause the I thought to rise and when their hold has been sufficiently weakened, the power of the Self destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the I thought never rises again.  This is the final and irreversible state of Self realisation.
This practice of self attention or awareness of the I thought is a gentle technique, which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts.  It merely evokes the awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not.
In the early stages effort in the form of transferring the attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential but once awareness of the I feeling has been firmly established further effort is counter productive from then on it is more a process of being than doing. Of effortless being rather than an effort to Be. Being what one already is is effortless since being ness is always present and always experienced. On the other hand Pretending to be what one is not, ie.the body and the mind requires continuous mental effort even though the effort is nearly always at a subconscious level.
It therefore follows that in the higher stages of self enquiry, effort takes attention away from the experience of Being while cessation of mental effort reveals it.  Ultimately the Self is not discovered as a result of doing anything but only by Being. 
Sri Ramana remarked: