During these brief moments of flow, our attention is in the present moment. We feel a profound sense of happiness, wellbeing, peace and awe. Our brain function changes. We go into “Bliss Brain,” a state with lots of calm alpha brainwaves. Beta waves, the signature frequency of stress, disappear.
Yet these states of flow are temporary. They’re accidental and fleeting. We can’t control them, or make them last. All too soon, Bliss Brain ends and we’re back to ordinary consciousness.
But for one group of people, Bliss Brain is their normal everyday state.
Those people are the mystics. In their poetry and scripture, they describe states of bliss far beyond ordinary experience. These altered states of consciousness include a vast sense of stillness, deep inner peace, ecstatic joy, and a sense of oneness with the universe. To describe the experience of continuous happy flow they use words like:
- Enlightenment
- The peace that passes understanding
- Illumination
- Awakening
- Mystical union
- Oneness consciousness
- Gazing on the face of God
- Non-dual awareness
- Samadhi
- Rapture
For the mystics, Bliss Brain is their default setting. It’s not a temporary state that happens occasionally and accidentally. It’s the normal configuration of their brains.
These continous states of elevated emotion are so unlike day-to-day human experience that it’s hard for most of us to relate to them. While we have occasional moments of flow, most of the time we’re in everyday consciousness, doing the best we can amidst the turmoil and confusion of the world.
What separates the ongoing Bliss Brain of the mystic from the ordinary consciousness of everyone else? Why can’t everyone reach and maintain this continous happy state? Three problems have stood in the way.
The 3 Problems
One is the “curation and initiation problem.” For thousands of years, the knowledge required to attain these altered states has been locked behind the walls of monasteries, temples and secret societies. These secrets were carefully curated by monks and nuns.
Reaching these high plateaus of human consciousness and potential required elaborate initiations and more than 10,000 hours of sustained practice. Only the most worthy of aspirants were allowed to even start on the path. Aspirants had to go through a long series of initiations, purifying their awareness and proving their character before being shown how to enter Bliss Brain.
The second obstacle is the “measurement problem.” You can measure the distance between Paris and Moscow, or the number of petals on a flower, or the boiling point of water, and everyone will agree on the result. The numbers are objective. But how do you measure the “unity consciousness” described by the mystics? It seems to be a purely subjective state, not one that can be measured objectively.
The third obstacle is the “replication problem.” Even if a seeker went through all the initiations, and broke through to enlightenment, the way Buddha or Jesus did, how do you replicate the experience in others?
The great Masters had dozens of disciples. These fortunate initiates walked, talked, and ate with the Masters daily – yet few of them broke through. Replicating these states in just one other person has proved to be a challenge. Replicating them in large numbers of people seems impossible.
But what if we could solve these 3 problems? What if we could take Bliss Brain out of the monastery, and get it to anyone who wanted to experience the same enlightened consciousness as the Masters? What would your life look like if – day after day – you lived in consistent ecstatic flow?
Science and the 3 Problems
In the past century, science has tackled all 3 problems. A series of remarkable scientific breakthroughs has allowed scientists to understand these extraordinary mental states.
In 1929 Hans Berger, a German doctor, invented the EEG or electroencephalogram. For the first time, researchers could look inside a person’s skull and see how the brain was functioning.
Berger’s contemporary, Dr. Paul Brunton, spent decades traveling the world. He studied with all the great Masters in whose lineages all the world’s spiritual traditions were recorded. He systematically recorded the wisdom of Hindu sages, Christian mystics, Buddhist monks, Catholic nuns, Native American shamans, Egyptian priests, and Taoist masters. Brunton identified the keys to mystical experience common to all religions.
In the 1950s British engineer Max Cade developed a special EEG to measure the brain states of the Masters. He identified a brainwave pattern common to people in these altered states of consciousness. For the first time, enlightenment could be measured.
Researchers extending Cade’s work realized that people in flow states had an identical pattern to those of the Masters. Peak performers, whether in art, science or athletics, also exhibited the brainwaves of flow. But while these states were temporary in peak performers, Masters had crossed an invisible boundary, and were in Bliss Brain most of the time.
Today, high-resolution MRI machines can map the brains of Masters down to a single neuron. Laboratories study monks and nuns with thousands of hours of spiritual practice, providing a neural map of their brain function.
Brain regions associated with happiness are highly developed, while those involved in stress and suffering are dark. The Masters can go into Bliss Brain whenever they choose. For the temporary periods when they’re in flow, peak performers get there too. By mapping Bliss Brain, science has solved the measurement problem.
Measuring these brainwave patterns has also solved the curation and initiation problem. With the correct training, people can be taught to acquire Bliss Brain without going through 10,000 hours of initiation. They skip the monastery, pilgrimage, vows and penances. Science directs them straight to the flow states of the Masters, and with practice, they learn to stay there.
This has in turn solved the replication problem. Guided by science, thousands of people have now been trained to acquire these enlightened states. A research-based training program is now available that allows anyone to experience Bliss Brain, then rewire their brains to make it their default setting.
It’s called the Life Flow Mastery Program. It provides you with the training to develop the deep and lasting inner peace characteristic of flow, and stay there consistently.
The Life Flow Mastery Program
The Life Flow Mastery Program combines the latest insights from neuroscience with the core practices of ancient traditions to rewire your brain for elevated emotional states. In this advanced training, you practice attaining the Bliss Brain pattern of a meditation Master.
As your brain function stabilizes, neural plasticity kicks in, turning temporary states of wellbeing into permanent personality traits. Those temporary glimpses of flow you’ve so enjoyed in the past? The Life Flow Mastery Program turns them into pervasive daily experiences. “Life flow” becomes your “new normal.”
The Life Flow Mastery Program is based on a ten year research program at the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare. It has identified techniques that allow novices to duplicate the brain states of Masters. This releases familiar patterns of suffering, and unlocks the full range of human potential. The Life Flow Mastery Program applies these breakthroughs in a structured 3 month program.
This program takes you through all the stages of personal development distilled by Dr Paul Brunton from the teaches of the ancient lineages. But rather than taking 10,000 hours, it applies the discoveries of modern neuroscience to accelerate the process. The goal is to guide you to an ongoing daily experience of Bliss Brain in just 3 months.
The 7 Neurochemicals of Bliss Brain
When you start the Life Flow Mastery Program, you first learn special meditations that unlock the synthesis of seven specific neurotransmitters and hormones in your brain.
These neurochemicals – such as serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and anandamide – produce pleasurable states in the brain. While these molecules occur naturally in everyone’s brain, research has shown that certain practices boost their levels.
The first module in the Life Flow Mastery Program trains your brain to synthesize the highly pleasurable neurochemicals found in Bliss Brain. Brunton called this experience “a glimpse of enligtenment.”
The second phase of the training uses a technique called Childhood Repatterning. Our personalities are formed early in childhood, and traumatic incidents that occur during this phase of life leave a lasting impression.
These memories are more than abstract thoughts. They’re hardwired into our neural network. It’s essential to heal them, because otherwise they remain in our “shadow self” and sabotage our transformational journey.
In this phase of the course you’re guided by a personal mentor. Besides instructional materials and quizzes you receive a personalized series of healing sessions from a trained and certified practitioner. Randomized controlled trials show that the methods used in Childhood Repatterning produce changes in the brain, quieting the regions associated with stress and negative emotion.
Mentorship is an essential part of the Life Flow Mastery Program. You meet your mentor at the beginning of the course and share your experiences with your mentor each step of the way.
The Community of Practice
You also receive warmhearted, well-informed and caring support from a group of likeminded people going through the course. You connect regularly with other members of your group, forming a tight-knit community of practice. This keeps you on track and provides you with the wisdom and inspiration required to move steadily through the process.
Accelerating Neurogenesis
In the final phases of the Life Flow Mastery program, you learn practices that trigger accelerated neurogenesis. You combine the pleasurable states you’ve experienced and your newly healed self with your highest future potential. You turn these temporary states of wellbeing into permanent traits.
The techniques you learn in this phase of the course rewire several parts of your brain. These include the default mode network (DMN), a brain axis that constructs your sense of self, yet is also the neurological center of suffering. In ordinary consciousness, the DMN is active, producing negative emotion and self-obsessed thinking.
Masters are able to shut the DMN down in seconds. At the same time, they activate the brain’s happiness centers. These include the insula, a brain region associated with love, compassion and joy.
The science-based techniques taught in the Life Flow Mastery Program train novices to do the same. Your brain function now echoes that of the adepts who have learned to boost their happiness centers and regulate negative emotion.
The Brain’s Enlightenment Circuit
You practice strengthening your brain’s “enlightenment circuit,” which is composed of four distinct networks.
- The emotion regulation network
- The self-referencing network
- The attention network
- The empathy network
Orchestrated together, these four regions form the brain’s “enlightenment circuit.” In the final phases of the Life Flow Mastery Program, you’re trained to activate and reinforce all four networks simultaneously.
Research shows that by the end of the course you will have a completely different view of yourself. You’ll have reduced your levels of anxiety, depression and traumatic stress dramatically.
Simultaneously, you will have boosted your levels of both happiness and physical health, and open up a future in which you express your full potential. Rather than an occasional experience, Bliss Brain becomes your habitual mental state.
The Life Flow Mastery program begins twice a year. It requires your commitment for the course for the full 3 months, as well as a substantial financial and time investment. Applicants to the course are screened to determine if they are eligible to participate. If you’d like to be notified of when enrollment is next open please send your name and contact information to Support@EFTuniverse.com with “Life Flow Mastery Program” in the subject line.
