Feb 28

The 7 Coolest Superpowers of Enlightenment

Lasting peace and contentment? Sure, whatever. A feeling of being home in your life? Yeah, fine.

We all know what you’re really looking for when you’re seeking enlightenment. After extensive interviews with our pool of graduates, we’ve come up with the definitive list of the absolute best, most amazing, most incredibly AWESOME superpowers everyone who gains enlightenment receives. So let’s go!

#1. Laser Vision

Laser. Freaking. Vision. Vaporize your enemies instantly. Never go looking for a can ope… you know what? ‘Nuff said. Laser. Freaking. Vision.

#2.Interstellar travel

Sure, most people who finally achieve total and complete enlightenment choose to spend the majority of their time on good ol’ planet Earth. But it is nice to know that with a wink you can hop off to Mars and take a breather, or spend your vacation on Rigel VII and experience emotions 100 times greater than what we call Love. But the absolute, #1 most amazing superpower you’ll get when you’re enlightened is…

#3.Levitation: The “2 inch” phenomenon…

D.T. Suzuki has a pretty famous quote: “Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.” Most people don’t realize: he meant that literally! There’s a great deal of controversy within the community of enlightened folks as to whether this is really a superpower or just a parlor trick. But we’re including it here because everyone agrees: it’s pretty nifty.

#4.Farts? Now they smell Like Jasmine

Which, considering the burrito thing, is really good.

#5.Knowing where the nearest quality burrito restaurant is at all times

Lets face it: there’s a wide range in the quality of what passes for a burrito. Factors like chewiness and warmth of tortilla, proper distribution of ingredients, skill in wrapping–not to mention freshness of ingredients, or how long meat/veggies have been marinated for–they all vary wildly, and seemingly randomly. So it’s nice to know that after you’re enlightened, you’ll never have to worry about this again. You’ll instantly have a comprehensive multi-factor scale at your disposal for every burrito in a 50-mile radius, giving you and your dining companions objective certainty about where to go for burritos.
[Fun fact: while the usefulness of this has somewhat diminished in the last 15 years b/c of ‘#7: wifi everywhere,’ this used to be one of the most impressive of enlightenment superpowers. When John Lennon was asked about the Maharishi in a 1967 interview for Rolling Stone, for example, his first response was, “The man is just remarkable. I have–quite honestly–never eaten a sub-par burrito in his company. Nothing less than an 8 out of 10, when I think about it. And we’re talking India here…it’s just astounding.”

#6.Turn Rain into Birds

Caught without your umbrella? No problema. People who gain enlightenment also gain the ability to turn raindrops into birdies. The benefits and application of this are pretty obvious, so let’s turn quickly to…

#7.Never being without WiFi

That’s right: You thought “connection” was just a metaphor? Nope. The moment you attain your enlightenment, you’ll never have to worry about ‘hot-spots’ again. Gone are the days of running around looking for a coffee shop so you can download your presentation. You’ll never miss another Tinder notification again. And we’re talking significant savings on your mobile bill. In fact, you won’t even need a computer or phone to connect. You are the world-wide-web now. Welcome to the future, John Spartan.

Okay… so clearly these are ridiculous. (Except, surprisingly, for the burrito one…)

But if you’ve spent any time looking into meditation, you’ve probably come across some other equally outrageous claims, made with a straight face. And this is doubly unfortunate: either you buy into them, and then become disenchanted and maybe even put meditation aside, or you realize that the claims are bogus, and lump all meditation together as “some woo-woo B.S.”
Even that word, “enlightenment,” has come to mean something rarefied and mystical. Or worse, something mythical.
And this is a tragedy. Because for thousands of years the world’s lineages have protected and maintained some very real, and really wonderful, states of being. Ways that you can live your life that are remarkably different from what we tend to experience as day-to-day consciousness.
The Finders Course is based on the most extensive academic research into these states of being, with more than 9 years and well over a thousand participants. We don’t use the word ‘enlightenment,’ or ‘awakening,’ or ‘unity,’ or ‘mystical experiences.’ They mean too many things to too many people.
We call these ways of being Ongoing, Non-Symbolic Experience (O.N.E.) People who experience O.N.E. can’t shoot lasers out of their eyes, or levitate, and some can’t tell a quality burrito from a quesadilla. But they do experience a fundamental sense of well-being, dramatic decreases in anxiety and depression, greater love and compassion, and a whole slew of other benefits.
And it doesn’t take sitting in a cave for years: 73% of our students in the Finders Course transition to O.N.E. in less than 17 weeks.
If this is interesting to you, watch the video below, and click here to find out more.

Feb 28

O.N.E.: The Big Picture

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The video above is a talk that Jeffery recently gave at the Transformative Technology Conference, hosted at the Transformative Technology Lab at Sofia University.

In it, Jeffery makes the argument that the most significant element of the Finders Course is not the benefit that it brings to its students – though of course for each individual that goes through the Finders Course, this is substantial – but that the Finders Course provides solid, empirical evidence that O.N.E. (or, in the video, P.N.S.E*) is a real potential for human life. There’s a very real condition of well-being that does not simply come and go as a passing state, but that can become the backdrop for your entire life. Now the question is, can we scale it? Can we develop the technologies involved to the point where we can find a technological means to shift a billion people into states of fundamental well-being?

Of course, any such solution is years off still, and the Finders Course is running its next class soon. If you’re interested, click here for more information.

Video Highlights

[01:21] Is O.N.E. a religious phenomenon? Or restricted to those with a belief system?
[04:05] Why aren’t we simply hard-wired for O.N.E.?
[10:00] Is it really all that different? Persistent and non-persistent experiences of well-being?

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*On this site, we use O.N.E., or “ongoing, non-symbolic experience” to mean the virtually permanent state(s) of well-being that our students transition into. P.N.S.E. stands for “persistent, non-symbolic experience,” and it’s our research term for O.N.E. that has lasted for a straight year.O.N.E.: ongoing; P.N.S.E.: ongoing for more than 1 year.

Feb 28

Want to Wake Up? Make These Two Mistakes, and You Won’t

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Mediation is hard, right? And waking up? Good luck! You’d better go and sit in a cave for a few years if you’re serious.

Actually, no.

In the course of the more than 9 years of research that the Finders Course is based on, we found a handful of very common and deeply held assumptions about meditation, practice, and the fundamental well-being that is the goal of meditation (which we call O.N.E.), that keep people from getting real results from their practice. Here are the two key findings of our research that make the Finders Course hands-down the quickest and most effective way to wake up:

Most Methods Aren’t Very Effective

Google “Learn to Meditate.” (I’ll wait…)

I get over 14 million results when I do that. The first page that comes up contains some good resources for the beginner: mantra meditations, some simple breathwork. But these are not very likely to take you to O.N.E. In fact, we found less than 10 methods which worked to transition more than a tiny percentage of people into ongoing states of peace, joy, and well-being. You probably don’t have to do the math: your odds of stumbling on one of these aren’t very good. And, those that do work reliably max out at between 10 and 20% of practitioners, meaning that even if you’re lucky and do start practicing one of these methods, you’re still overwhelmingly likely to be one of the 4 out of 5 people for whom the method is not going to get you across the finishing line. Which leads to…

You Need to Find the Method that Works for You, Now

There’s really no way to figure this out before you actually try a method out. Our students frequently report how silly they thought a method was… until they practiced it.

Conversely, if you’ve tried meditation – especially if your aim is effecting a significant shift in your consciousness, you’ve probably been told when something doesn’t seem to be working that you are doing something wrong, or simply that you need to try harder. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The methods that do work are powerful, as long as they’re in alignment with you.

Another way of saying this:

When Something Works, You’ll Know It.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SIT IN A CAVE FOR YEARS. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DUTIFULLY SHOW UP DAY AFTER DAY, YEAR AFTER YEAR. When something works, you will see the effects in your life, after a surprisingly short amount of time. We found that if you practice an hour a day, you will more likely than not be able to tell if something works for you after just one week. If you’re practicing for 20-30 minutes a day, you should still be able to tell after a month of practice whether something works for you or not.

To sum up:

Mistake #1: Not using a method proven to help transition people to O.N.E. in the first place.

Mistake #2: “Trying Harder, Longer.” Continuing with a method that doesn’t work long after you should switch.

Finders Course works because we only teach methods that actually transition a significant number of people. Not every method will work for you, but you’re almost certainly going to find a few that will, giving you a great chance of transitioning to O.N.E. in less than 17 weeks. Not in years… not after a lifetime of dedication…

73% of our students transition to O.N.E. during the course. A further 25% experience temporary states of non-symbolic experience during the course, and many of them transition into O.N.E. soon after the course concludes. No other program can claim this, because they almost certainly are not teaching only the most effective methods, and they are almost certainly not tracking their students with empirical psychological methods of well-being.

There is nothing out there comparable to the Finders Course. Find out for yourself.