--- schema: 1 type: video title: The Meditation State Most People Never Experience description: >- We had someone guide himself toward Jhana live on our podcast. And he narrated himself from start to finish. Jhanas are meditative bliss states and they traditionally require thousands of hours of practice. But Stephen Zerfas and his team at Jhourney are changing that—creating retreats where most participants hit a Jhana in their first week. Dan Shipper went to one of their retreats earlier this year, and it was by far the best he’s been to. So we had Stephen on AI & I to show us how he gets into a Jhana and what the future of super wellbeing might look like. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: - Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe - Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:56 A primer on Jhana meditation: 00:01:18 Zerfas guides himself towards Jhana: 00:05:47 Why Jhana is about resting into what already exists: 00:36:04 Approaching meditation with play and curiosity: 00:39:30 The potential pitfalls of Jhana meditation: 00:45:04 How to hack your personality through memory reconsolidation: 00:48:21 Why Jhana won't let you numb yourself to real problems: 00:53:10 How Jhana meditation has changed Zerfas: 00:55:36 How Jhourney is using AI to make Jhanas more accessible: 01:09:41 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Stephen Zerfas: https://x.com/stephen_zerfas Jhourney: https://www.jhourney.io/ The Donella Meadows book Zerfas refers to: Thinking in Systems: A Primer canonical: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/the-meditation-state-most-people-never-experience-87966c261bdd markdown: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/video/the-meditation-state-most-people-never-experience-87966c261bdd.md llms: null parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md' channel: everyinc updated: '2026-10-24T01:06:18.046Z' language: null children: [] videoId: LYvjNgcGlKA durationSeconds: 4553 publishedAt: '2025-12-17T16:38:23.000Z' searchChunks: - ordinal: 0 text: null startSeconds: 10 endSeconds: 133 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=10' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 1 text: null startSeconds: 10 endSeconds: 133 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=10' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 2 text: null startSeconds: 143 endSeconds: 266 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=143' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 3 text: null startSeconds: 277 endSeconds: 378 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=277' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 4 text: null startSeconds: 277 endSeconds: 378 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=277' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 5 text: null startSeconds: 478 endSeconds: 606 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=478' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 6 text: null startSeconds: 618 endSeconds: 716 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=618' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 7 text: null startSeconds: 838 endSeconds: 918 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=838' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 8 text: null startSeconds: 929 endSeconds: 1037 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=929' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 9 text: null startSeconds: 1326 endSeconds: 1427 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=1326' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 10 text: null startSeconds: 1545 endSeconds: 1628 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=1545' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 11 text: null startSeconds: 1769 endSeconds: 1892 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=1769' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 12 text: null startSeconds: 2145 endSeconds: 2225 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2145' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 13 text: null startSeconds: 2238 endSeconds: 2327 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2238' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 14 text: null startSeconds: 2338 endSeconds: 2417 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2338' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 15 text: null startSeconds: 2740 endSeconds: 2821 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2740' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 16 text: null startSeconds: 2831 endSeconds: 2920 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2831' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 17 text: null startSeconds: 2931 endSeconds: 3033 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=2931' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 18 text: null startSeconds: 3043 endSeconds: 3157 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=3043' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 19 text: null startSeconds: 3157 endSeconds: 3169 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=3157' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 20 text: null startSeconds: 3572 endSeconds: 3653 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=3572' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 21 text: null startSeconds: 3797 endSeconds: 3917 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=3797' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 22 text: null startSeconds: 3928 endSeconds: 4018 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=3928' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 23 text: null startSeconds: 4028 endSeconds: 4133 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=4028' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 24 text: null startSeconds: 4144 endSeconds: 4240 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=4144' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 25 text: null startSeconds: 4251 endSeconds: 4330 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/LYvjNgcGlKA?t=4251' heldReason: rights --- # The Meditation State Most People Never Experience We had someone guide himself toward Jhana live on our podcast. And he narrated himself from start to finish. Jhanas are meditative bliss states and they traditionally require thousands of hours of practice. But Stephen Zerfas and his team at Jhourney are changing that—creating retreats where most participants hit a Jhana in their first week. Dan Shipper went to one of their retreats earlier this year, and it was by far the best he’s been to. So we had Stephen on AI & I to show us how he gets into a Jhana and what the future of super wellbeing might look like. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: - Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe - Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:56 A primer on Jhana meditation: 00:01:18 Zerfas guides himself towards Jhana: 00:05:47 Why Jhana is about resting into what already exists: 00:36:04 Approaching meditation with play and curiosity: 00:39:30 The potential pitfalls of Jhana meditation: 00:45:04 How to hack your personality through memory reconsolidation: 00:48:21 Why Jhana won't let you numb yourself to real problems: 00:53:10 How Jhana meditation has changed Zerfas: 00:55:36 How Jhourney is using AI to make Jhanas more accessible: 01:09:41 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Stephen Zerfas: https://x.com/stephen_zerfas Jhourney: https://www.jhourney.io/ The Donella Meadows book Zerfas refers to: Thinking in Systems: A Primer Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/the-meditation-state-most-people-never-experience-87966c261bdd · Channel: [Every](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.