It also depends on what "zero effects" means, exactly.
Thanks to a lot of meditation myself, I generally remain almost perfectly lucid on very large doses (10g+) of psilocybe cubensis. But boy, stuff is sure still happening. It's closely related to this quote above:
"Now the whole idea of a meditative practice is the process of very simply extricating awareness from the identification with thought & sensation." - Ram Dass
The more one practices this, the less one "loses oneself" in the ever-changing swirl of phenomena passing through the experiential field.
I should also add that this "witnessing" phase is not the end of the story, either. I'm not necessarily a big fan of Ken Wilber, but I like how he describes it here:
"This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self, the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release, and Liberation.
With this discovery… you are halfway home. You have disidentified from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released, liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be.
But why is that only halfway home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos become One Taste – you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar system replaces your head…"
Thanks to a lot of meditation myself, I generally remain almost perfectly lucid on very large doses (10g+) of psilocybe cubensis. But boy, stuff is sure still happening. It's closely related to this quote above:
"Now the whole idea of a meditative practice is the process of very simply extricating awareness from the identification with thought & sensation." - Ram Dass
The more one practices this, the less one "loses oneself" in the ever-changing swirl of phenomena passing through the experiential field.
I should also add that this "witnessing" phase is not the end of the story, either. I'm not necessarily a big fan of Ken Wilber, but I like how he describes it here:
"This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self, the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release, and Liberation.
With this discovery… you are halfway home. You have disidentified from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released, liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be.
But why is that only halfway home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos become One Taste – you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar system replaces your head…"