My Journey with the Finders Course

My association with the Finders Course began in 2014. At the time, there wasn’t much information available online about Dr. Jeffery Martin. I was leading a meditation group on Meetup when someone from Jeffery’s organization contacted me about the course and asked if I would be interested.

I had been teaching meditation since 2011 and had been in what Jeffery calls Location 2 since 2003. I felt that learning new techniques for my students and seeing if I could go further (it felt like there was more to do) would be a worthwhile investment of time and money.

I ended up joining cohort #3 of the Finders Course (FC3). FC1 had just concluded, and FC2 was about halfway through. This was still early in the second phase of Jeffery’s research, following his initial 10-year study in which he interviewed about 1,000 spiritually awake individuals. From that research, he developed the concept of “Locations” and was now seeking before-and-after data on awakened people (he already had extensive “after” data from his original interviews).

In my cohort, I was placed in a small group of six people: two Christians, one Hindu, one nondual teacher, one secular participant, and Buddhist me. We didn’t have contact with other groups, except the nondual teacher’s husband, who was in a different small group.

Early on, I made the decision to set aside my preferred Buddhist terminology and instead adopt Jeffery’s language of PNSE (Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) and the Locations. That choice made a huge difference, as it allowed me to engage more fully with the course material and connect better with others in the cohort who came from diverse traditions. Jeffery doesn’t privilege any particular tradition or vocabulary, which created a shared framework we could all relate to.

I’ve come to really appreciate Jeffery’s schema of Locations (and more recently, Layers), as it offers a meta-framework into which all types of persistently awake people can be placed. It also provides a shared language based on common aspects of cognition, affect, memory, perception, and sense of self…criteria he borrowed from academic psychology to ground his research.

In the first few weeks, I was instructed to do an hour of meditation and positive psychology practices in the morning upon waking, and again at night before going to sleep. There were also one-off practices during the week, and we had instructional videos to watch in the online course room. New content was released twice a week (Fridays and Wednesdays) for the first three weeks, and then weekly thereafter.

By week 3, I met the other members of my cohort and began group practices two hours weekly, plus a two-hour weekend group meeting. At this point, the new course content dropped to once a week, and the one-off exercises stopped. My average time commitment was about two hours per day, including a one-hour seated meditation I was already long accustomed to.

In week 5, another solo practice was introduced, with the option to skip meditation if time was tight. I chose to do both, which raised my daily average to about three hours.

By week 7, new practices were added weekly, and previous ones became optional. Our group chose to continue our group practice. I dropped the previous solo practice but maintained my meditation routine, so I stayed at about three hours a day for the rest of the 17-week course.

If you’re busy, you can still manage. The minimal commitment would be the one-hour meditation, morning and evening practices, watching course content, and attending the weekend group calls. About 1.75 hours a day on average. I’ve facilitated the course with people who had full-time jobs and families. The laundry and to-dos may pile up, but they made it work and were glad they did.

Personally, I loved the course. About two weeks in, my wife said, “You’re nicer.” That alone made the tuition worth it! Every technique in the course had an effect on me. There were one or two I wish I had more time to explore, but overall, I was amazed at the course’s effectiveness. I could see it in my friends’ faces as they transformed before my eyes. Interestingly, the secular participant was the first to shift. She left the course early, saying she got what she came for.

I also found what I was looking for. I reached Location 4 by the end of the course, using a technique I had created (experimentation is a big part of the course). About a year later, I retook the course to revisit the practices I hadn’t fully explored the first time. Another year after that, an alumni community formed around the Explorer’s Course, and a year later, Jeffery launched a facilitator program.

Since becoming a trained facilitator, I’ve led the full course nearly 30 times. I’ve been involved in the spiritual path for a long time, and to this day, there’s nothing quite like the Finders Course. It’s been a privilege to support others on their journey. Watching people discover and stabilize fundamental wellbeing and seeing them lead happier, more fulfilled lives is truly a joy.

Here is a very slick advertisement for the course. But it does capture its essence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnw-PdAsmuQ

Here is a very informative page on Jeffery’s Research. The 1 hour video on the Martin Matrix towards the bottom of the page is worth watching.

https://www.nonsymbolic.org/publications/

I was trained by Jeffery to be a Mentor in the 45 Days to Awakening Course as well. See below for more info on that course.

https://fundamentalwellbeing.foundation/45daystoawakening/

Video Testimonials