Awakening & Awareness: Dean Graves on Spirituality, Consciousness and Self-Healing

In this special bonus episode, we welcome Dean Graves, a meditation teacher and mental health counselor, who shares his profound journey of spiritual awakening. Starting with a background in philosophy and psychology, Dean's life took a transformative turn at age 50, leading him to explore mindfulness, meditation, and the deeper truths of consciousness. With over 20 years of experience, four books, and two podcasts, Dean discusses the importance of healing our perceptions, the spiritual significance of the 12-step process, and his latest book, The Enigma of Consciousness. Join us for an enlightening conversation that delves into the heart of human experience, spirituality, and the path to true happiness.

Check out Dean Graves' website and books:

https://www.ddeangraves.org/

Transcript

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Welcome to this, special bonus section of our, show. We're going to have Dean Graves on today. He's a meditation teacher and a mental health counselor. And really just an interesting guy. And I'm so happy to have him on. Dean. Thank you for coming on today. Thank you. John. Thank you for having me. And delighted to be here. Yeah. And I always feel like it's best if the guest kind of gives us their perspective and where they're coming from and sort of reading a biography. So if you could just tell us who you are and what you're all about, then we can get, you know, get started. Okay. Well, just, a brief history. We came to the pursuit of, spirituality and spiritual topics relatively late in life. I, began my undergraduate, years were spent, studying philosophy and psychology. And, after doing some graduate work, I got into the business world and lost touch in contact with that path that I had an interest in in my undergraduate years. And, around my 50th year, I had an awakening. And an awakening is an often misunderstood concept. Awakening is nothing more than that point that you get to in your life when you realize that all that stuff that you've been doing is not providing you with greater happiness. Matter of fact, the more intensely you do it, the less happy you seem to be getting. And so I hit that point around my 50th year, and, as most people do, I begin searching around for alternatives of things that would provide, greater happiness and, began meditating. And as most people begin meditation, they come to meditation, running away from the stick. And the stick hurts. And so they're seeking relief from their unpleasant experiences and unhappiness. And as everyone will if they remain diligent, I got a bite of the apple. And the apple tasted really good. And so that, changed my motivation from running away from the stick to pursuing the apple. And I've been pursuing the apple for, over 20 years now. Written for books. I have two podcasts that I produce, and I have, may sound corny and, a purposeful intent of providing the general public with information and guidance on escalating their own degree of awareness and and which is synonymous with enlightenment. And so that brings us to where we are today. I have a new book that's coming out, the end of August, August 30th. It should be on bookshelves September 1st. Called The Enigma of Consciousness, a spiritual exploration of humanity's relationship to creation. And it is, my compendium book, I would say to, to date and provides people with, information that is necessary to. If not begin to accelerate their pursuit of enlightenment. So that pretty much brings us up to date. That's a that's a really great introduction. I, I really, I really I, I really resonate with kind of the path that you took. I, I kind of had my awakening. I guess I was probably 40, 41, so, but, you know, not to too far away from the time frame where you kind of had yours. And I really, I really enjoyed hearing your description of, of consciousness and spirituality and what it means to you and the fact that you're on a path, that your purpose is to go out there and help people find their path to, to that same thing. And I share that, that mission with you. So, yeah. And I think we need our pre, interview, chat. I think that we resonated that intent pretty significantly. Yeah. But the if you consider the, many people are familiar with the 12 step programs of either a, A or in a, but the 12 steps are not just applicable from someone recovering from an addiction. The process that the 12 steps, delineate is exactly the same process that everyone has to go to go through in order to heal their distortions of perception of self. Begin to liberate and experience their authentic self, heal from those distortions and advance their, evolutionary process. And the latter, you can group the the 12 steps into groups of, four groups of three each. The first six are healing, self healing. The bottoms are the last six. Seven through 12 are when you begin to become a teacher. And it's when you get to that point of having significantly healed your distortions of perception of self and your addictions and all of those things that causes so much pain and suffering that you, can offer that to others that are not yet where you are. The more significantly you go through the cycle of repeating those 12 steps, really accelerates your awareness and advancement. Because when you become a teacher, then you really have to know your stuff because other people are relying on you. And so that intensifies that motivation and propels that possibly here to for preoccupation with self to help others heal and advance their, evolution. So it's a, you know, if you even if you've never had, difficulties with addiction of any sort, it's very useful to use that as a guide, even if you don't have anybody to, to help you go through it. Just following those steps with a dedication will significantly benefit your healing of distortions of perception of self and advancement along the evolutionary path. Yeah, healings of the distortions of our perceptions of self. I feels like it's, it's worth repeating because. When we start to see ourselves without those distortions, then that really takes us much further down, down this path that that all of us probably want to go on a path that has less pain, a path has more joy, more happiness. And it's it's interesting that you couch it in terms of the steps, and then you compare it to addiction, because I feel like it's almost like society is addicted to itself, like people are addicted to the what people told them that that life was like and what life had to be or or what they had to do. And this, that conveyor belt of our communities put us out and expect us to stay on, you know, and it's almost like we can be addicted to that because we know it. It's safe. And if we can stop and kind of look around and suddenly we see that there's so much more out there, whether it is. But, you know, from a psychology standpoint, one of the the problems that I've had with psychology for decades is psychology. Psychology says that they study the mind, but the reality is what they study is behavior, right? And they really have no they have no consensus and veritably no understanding of what a mind is. We are a mind, body and spirit. The mind is a product of the spirit. The body is a product of the mind. So the missing link that we don't understand, the body we see, we touch, we feel, we we experience. The missing element is the mind. And the mind is nothing more than a bundle of thoughts, a bundle of beliefs. That's all that it is. It is a lens through which we interpret our experiences as participants in creation. And, and we participate and a range of consciousness which is very low on the scale. We are element. We're in elementary school, if you, and we are learning a curriculum, part of the rigors of that curriculum or to create a hierophant, a false identity or an ego, it's all the same thing, just different words for the same thing. And we began creating this from the minute that we're born, the minute we're born, we began processing, thought and the mind processes thought. We are all motivated to get more of what we like. And so as an infant, our capacity, our degree of awareness is very simple. It's very low. And so we process thoughts according primarily to feel, touch. You know, I'm hungry, I want food, I'm cold, I want, you know, warmth. I want to be cuddled. All of those things or reinforcement. So what we like as we mature, when we enter those terrible two stages. And I remember the terrible twos with my oldest, you know, I put this little angel to bear the night before. And the next morning she woke up and she was a little Tasmanian devil. It just I don't know where she came from. It just was not the same child. Then I put to bed the night before. But what happened at that transition into toddlerhood is we opened an entirely new level of awareness. But that awareness has no information. And so the reason for the behavior changes for from a, for a toddler, from an infant is testing the world around them to try to fill in that vacancy of information. And we will remain at that level of awareness until such time as we reach puberty. And a similar event happens when we reach puberty. It's not just, biological. The biology is triggered as a result of gaining additional level of awareness in the same thing happens, we have greater awareness, but we have no information. And that's why those adolescent years, in those teenage years or so difficult, because we're trying to fill in that information gap to match our awareness, will remain at that level of awareness until we are motivated in order to assume responsible energy, or our further advancement or further escalation, and in order to gain that additional layer of awareness that allows us to transition from what we were talking about before, realizing that all of the things that we've been doing, information were gathering and is not providing us with happiness, we open the to use a common reference, we open our fourth metaphysical chakra. We become more aware of other people and that information greatly escalates, because we have assumed responsibility for ourselves and a whole new way. And so the the process is the same for everyone. The experiences are immutable. When you begin to do the work and you surrender this here, which is a very large part of our objective, this harassment creates an ego mind, and that is the mind that we, you and I, are using right now to converse. And it is nothing more than a bundle of beliefs that we, for the most part, have, gotten by osmosis. We got it from parents, from brands, from all of that, some stuff that just we have no idea where it came from. We didn't necessarily consent to put it in there, but it's in there. But in order to get it out, we have to become aware of it and let it go. Now, because we're we work by trial and error. We work by the process of analogy. As humans, we have experiences that we don't like in order to know what we do like. When we experience it, you have to compare and contrast. If you decided that you like chocolate ice cream is your favorite flavor of ice cream. And when you go into the ice cream store and there's 150 flavors of ice cream there, but you go right over to the chocolate and stand in front of that until you can get the attendant side to bring them over and give you some chocolate ice cream. You made that determination not by happenstance, but you tried. If not all of the other 149 flavors, a large number of them. In order to make that determination. The same is true is narrowing down what it is that we really like. And most people are deceived. And waiter, do they like. Because in addition to learning by analogy, we learn by observation and we see someone. And this is the basis of our own advertising. When we see someone that is we perceive to be happier than we are, then we begin to emulate that person. There's no car company in the world that advertises our car without happy people using their car. And in the subconscious mind we think, well, you know, I if I bought that new, minivan that has a happy family with three kids and spouse and all of that and all I have to do is buy that van and I'll have a happy wife and happy kids to, well, you know, you buy the van, you realize quickly that that family didn't get happier or transformed their behavior because you bought this van, or in six months is no longer this happy van is just the family van. And so we go through these periods of trial and error and experimentation and advancement, and we're, you know, we're clicking on the things that don't provide us with happiness. We have, particularly in the United States, a preoccupation with buying things. And these things will make us happy until we get to that point where we may have acquired a lot of things and we're still not happy. Some of the most unhappy people I know have gotten all the money in the world and all the the trinkets in the world, all the toys in the world. But that is part of the learning process, and we have to go through that in order to experience that. And, eliminate from our, bucket list things that we think that we need to do and need to achieve. And all this while awareness is very important because while we're acquiring assets and we're acquiring interactions with people that we deem to be pleasing, our awareness is directional and it is pointed outside of us, and we're measuring other people and how they are responding to those beliefs that I've incorporated into this here. Often to this false identity is ego. And if I get reinforcement of whatever belief that I have and resonate and resonance with, with other people, then I keep it until such point as it no longer gives me resonance if it's something that doesn't resonate, in other words, something I don't like that in and of itself is stress. When our hair up and the beliefs in our hair of or challenge that we experience, stress. And so I will, up into a point, make an effort in order to change that. I'll I'll supplement that belief that didn't get me more of what I like with another belief to try that out and see if that doesn't get me more of what I like. Unfortunately, we get tired of doing that and we reach a point. Most people reach a point in our in our lives where we enter this, what I call a status phase. And we get tired of adjusting our here at hand, and we try to manipulate the world to conform to, our belief system into our hero thing. And and that seldom works. It just compounds the stress. But we draw in our sphere of operation, so we reduce our opportunity for greater awareness by entering that stasis phase. What we really seek is stability, which is different from stasis. And that stasis does not anticipate change, stability does anticipate change. And so when we reach a point of stability, then we continue to have experiences. We're doing a trial and error basis, but we are reaching a point of stability that a change doesn't upset our whole applecart. And we become very malleable and interactive with the world around us. The creator is absolute stability, and so we seek that because it feels good to be in that fluctuating point of stability. That's what, our spiritual teachers have taught us for hundreds of years. That was the focus of the Buddha's work. There was a focus of Jesus, his word, and Lao Tzu and yada yada, yada. Whatever spiritual teacher that you can name, ancient or recent understands that that point of stability is what we are seeking. So what we are doing in order to heal and what the 12 step program does, is it causes us to invert that awareness and start looking inside. So we see we come to become aware of what are the things that we have incorporated into our mind in our higher up and that are causing us stress. But we also all of these experiences that we've had during the course of our lives that were not pleasing to us, were actually messages to us about what we need to become aware of and let go of. But it's a homework assignment, and if you don't get the lesson at the time that is presented, then you get to keep it as a homework assignment. The homework assignment gets to be carried in the form of an emotion, and that's called emotional baggage. And so emotional baggage is heavy. And we have to carry that until we learn the lesson. Once we learned the lesson that it was brought to us and that those experiences, then we can put that emotional baggage down and never have to carry it again. But until we do that, we have to carry it and it gets heavy. We all have the same potential amount of energy, which is called intelligent energy, and that intelligent energy fuels all of our body systems, all of our mind system. That's how we sustain ourselves in creation. And this is provided directly by our higher self. And so imagine that before you were you were born, that you were told that your mission in life is just a run down to the end of the street, and you're given a new pair of running shoes and a real nice, running out there. And you'd think, man, this is going to be so easy. I'm just going to zip down to the end of the street, and then you start running and somebody comes up to you and says, but you got to carry this 300 pound ball concrete with you. And you're thinking, oh, wait a minute, this I can't run with this 300 pound ball of concrete that I carry all the strength and energy that I had in being diverted, carrying this emotional baggage. So we have to get rid of that 300 pound ball of concrete. It is absolutely permissible to just put it all down at one time. But in this 300 pound ball of concrete or all the lessons, all the homework assignments, so we didn't learn. And so we're probably going to have to take it out a chunk at a time. So every time that we heal and take a chunk out of this ball concrete, then we have more energy to do more work and to achieve our mission, which is still to run down to the end of the street. So and it's like pushing a car from dead stop. I'm sure you've tried to get a car going from dead stop. It's really hard to get it going, but once you get it going, you have momentum. It gets easier. The same is true with the healing that we have more energy because there's momentum and we're liberating the energy that we have as we heal during this process of evolving through this range of consciousness. And so most of the mental illnesses that people experience are as a result of a lack of the energy. And if you understand that if you've ever done anything with an electric motor and you know that that motor has the potential to run at its maximum design capacity, but if it doesn't have enough energy, it's just going to run right. It's not going to run. And so as you increase the available energy to that motor, the more efficiently air runs. And the same is with us. The more we heal, the more energy that we have and the more, better able to function in our life experience that, we're all here to enjoy. And I didn't give you many question answers, but, potential for our opportunity for questions. I'll shut up and let you know. No, I that no, that was I was really, And that was really interesting. And I would encourage our, our listeners and viewers to, to rewind that and watch it again, especially if people are really working their way down, down their spiritual path, because it's a really practical and, and I feel enlightened way to, to have awareness. And that brings me to awareness, which seems to be a theme, and what you're talking about, and obviously in my, my studies around the world reading different world religions, spiritual constructs, philosophy, awareness comes up quite a bit. And I, as you were kind of talking about all this, which it's this is a great process and how do you think that? People can learn to be aware to be aware that practice. Yeah I okay, yeah. Our task We are in what is called, identified as third density. That is the experience that we're all participating in right now. There are a, like, like, collective reality where our collective reality, the nature of the earth experience heretofore has been third density. It is transitioning to fourth entity. But, and we're about to experience a split, which means third density for those that are, not ready to graduate to fourth density will continue with the third density experience. Those that are ready for a fourth density will begin creating a parallel Earth experience, and potentially and that is in process, but that the the third density experience, there are. The third. To foundational densities, first density is, an organic matter firewater atmosphere and matter. Matter. What we consider matter and second density, are plants and animals. There there is distinct placement, between the densities. So in other words, we just don't kind of wander in from first into the second density. We don't wander into second density. There's a distinct placement that and that, consciousness is intentionally moved from first into the second density. The same is true of second density. The third density, third density, fourth density, and fifth density are considered to be the experiential densities we're in. Third density, sixth density is the first layer of creator being density, and the seventh and eighth density are creator being densities. These, each descending density is a fractal of the density above. So we are a fractal of fourth density. Second density is a fractal of third density, and so forth. In seventh density. Five and here, the eighth density is an analog projection of the one infinite creator that is outside of creation. The eighth density is an is an analog projection of the one infinite creator. The only distinction is the analog projection. Become the creator as the subject. The one infinite creator being the creator is the object. The creator is the subject perceives itself as separate from the one infinite creator, and that is the first distortion of creation that allows creation to exist, to begin, the creator is the subject, and that distortion of the perception of separation is free. Will. Philosophers have centuries have argued that do we have free will? Do we not have free will? Do we have the choice to go right? Or is that predetermined? Or to go left? Is that predetermined? All of those questions and opportunities are only possible because we perceive ourselves as separate. If we didn't perceive ourselves as separate, there would be no question. There would be no going right or going left, because we would know that all is one. And so the only way that creation can exist, it, because of that distortion of perception, free will works as an intoxicant. The more intoxicated that we are with free will, the more we perceive ourselves as autonomous beings and separate from the creator. And third density. We are extremely intoxicated with free will, and that intoxication just works just like whiskey. When we drink whiskey, then it lowers our awareness and we do stupid things. When we are heavily intoxicated with free will, we, have significantly lower awareness. And we do stupid things as we do every day. The process of evolution returning to unity with the creator, is designed as a hierarchy only because it's necessary to learn the curriculum at the lower level in order to do the work of the next level. Just like you got to have to learn the lessons. The third density to report density, because you won't be able to do for density work unless you learn the foundational stuff that is taught to you in third density. And so we are in third density. We're learning the curriculum. Third density. The curriculum of third density is awareness. That is the foundational, inherent characteristic of the creator creator that we are tasked with becoming in this range of consciousness. The next range, fourth density, does the same thing. Would love. The fifth density does the same thing with wisdom. The sixth density does the same thing with unity. Seventh density does the same thing with stillness. And those are the five inherent characteristics of the creator that became delineated in seventh density. And so awareness is important in this range of consciousness because that's what we're tasked. That's the curriculum. That's what we're tasked with learning. And we will first become aware when we have that awakening that we were, alluding to earlier. That is an awakening, and that is an awareness that is an increase in awareness. But it is necessary to assume responsibility for your evolution and consciously invert that awareness inside to become aware of what it is that you can change. Well, the only thing we can change is ourselves and so we will become aware and eventually we will become awareness. When we become awareness, then we will be prepared to do fourth density work and do the same thing with love. Explore, love, right? Yeah, I can definitely subscribe to that. It almost feels sometimes like free will is what free will really is. At a base level is the option to be enlightened if you want. Like the option to understand that there is this oneness of the universe, the divine or God, or however we choose to describe it as an individual. And we talk about fourth density, where we're moving to kind of a higher consciousness, a kind of higher collective, one reality. Do you do you see that that's happening in more numbers now, and that there's been people that have gone to these higher echelons of these higher fractals throughout history, and those are the people that have understood philosophy or, or magic or religion or spirituality or however they practiced it. Did you see that have having happened across like hundreds of years and that now it's just happening more? How do you see that now? We've had a very difficult as a, as a population art that has had a very difficult time in advancing, as a, medium for the population. We've not progressed past the midway point of, the third density range of consciousness. And so we keep cycling within the lower dimensions of the density, to the for I third density experience has a defined period of time. And the Earth experience ended in February of 2016, which was the end of an approximately 76,000 year cycle. That 76,000 year cycle is divided into three segments. The first segment and Earth is the second density. I mean the second chance planet, which means everyone that is in the population and now has failed to graduate from at least one other third density experience. And so we're we're kind of like a reform school. We're here in order to try to meld the, difficulties that we've had into a productive unit to move forward. The middle section of the pre prior Earth experience, we graduated 150 out of the entire population. And they, as a group, this, agreed to reincarnate as third density even though they were, graduation ready to go to density. And they agreed to stay with the population to continue to reincarnate. And most of these are the saints, the people that we've identified as saints, that have been spiritual leaders over our recorded history. And that's why their higher consciousness, they, you know, felt sorry for us and helping their, former fellow classmates that didn't graduate. We have started a new third density experience. So those that have not graduated, I don't have any information on, if the if or how many there were that graduated from the third cycle, third section of the cycle, but it wouldn't a lot, feel certain about that. But a large number of the children that have born been born between 2000 and 2010, our fourth density, therefore, density graduates. And so they're beginning a fourth density cycle in parallel, simultaneously with the generation of the start of a new third density experience. And so we're interacting. And for a few, generations, not many. And we will probably continue to interact. And it is hoped that the higher consciousness of the younger generations will influence the lower consciousness of the older and still recycle real, still reincarnating third density population to help them get a boost up in their new third density experience. Do you find world religions and certain spiritual constructs help advance this process? Not not as a whole, but partially versions of them? Because I know well aren't monoliths right? The, the one common foundational belief of every religion that I'm familiar with is that there is a God, which is a religious construct. And then there's you. And if we did not have that perspective that believe, then there would be no reason for the religion to exist. The reality is that all is one. And so we are the one infinite creator experiencing ourselves at this range of consciousness and, a lot of religious people have a problem with that because they're taught, well, I'm a spark, but I'm not, the creator. Well, you're right, whether you want to believe it or not. But if you ask yourself the question, would God, using the religious phrase. Sure. Would God be infinite? And almost invariably they say yes, that they would be infinite. Okay. Then you ask, what is infinite mean? Well, a lot of people think it means a lot of stuff. Well, it doesn't mean a lot of stuff. If it's infinite, then it's everything. The numerical value of infinity is one. Any other number is finite. The only infinite number is one, and that is called the law of one. And so if you understand that you are the creator, exploring yourself at this range of consciousness, which is how you fulfill your role in creation, is to simply explore yourself, then you understand that it is only within you that you can advance yourself along the evolutionary path. And so, consequently, the teachings of most religions are a hindrance. What religion does do is it brings people together, usually in some degree of harmony, and there's fellowship in a religious community. But when that community through dogma restricts your awareness, then it becomes a significant hindrance. Yeah, I agree with that. For the for the most part, I absolutely agree with that. I haven't studied like when you talk about the mystics, when you bring the mystics in. I feel like they start to get away from the dogma, away from the manmade truth, and they start to see like the self, the individual as the divine as the whole. Whether it's Christian mysticism or any Abrahamic mysticism, the Sufis or the the Kabbalah, or even if you go into like the Vedic teachings and, and like some of the universalist, like Brahma, pantheistic aspects of Hinduism. Do you see that there's people within those religions that are teaching more of that mystical side of the oneness of the self with everything are closer to what the, where we're going as far as our evolution of consciousness. Well, you know, you you have to separate the religion from the teachings of the mystic that is based upon the Buddha was not a Buddhist. Jesus was not a Christian. Amen. Yeah, yeah. So you know it. And we have so few, recordings of, Jesus that it really? Yeah. We really don't have even a hint of what he taught for. And, you know, the Buddha, in his wisdom, said, just come and see for yourself, right? You know, you'll you'll have the same immutable experiences. Just come and do it. Yeah. And see for yourself. Yeah, yeah. But man has to put dogma on top of that because they don't understand. Because they can't see the the tail of the trail or like the, the essence of the trail. So they have to put dogma on top of it so they can have some type of structure to the culture. This here happen that we are obligated to come to the ego, to absolutely create, and it is part of our process that we will begin and unconsciousness, and we are obligated to overcome that. And to become aware of the beliefs that we've incorporated into this here and and realize that these are the source of our stress and suffering and begin to surrender those. And that's that analogy process, as you have if you, and the reason we start, unconscious is if you remember an experiment you probably did in ninth grade general science and it was universal, finding that it, you know, it was the same experience you had to being plant. You planted a seed, one you deprived of sunlight, the other one you gave sunlight, and they both grew. But the one that was deprived of sunlight grew twice as fast as the one that was dead. Sunlight and water and so on and so forth. But it grew, pure white. It developed no, you know, chlorophyl and was not a healthy plant, but it was growing at twice the rate in order to find sunlight. It knew it needed sunlight. Yeah. And so when you opened, you know, the container or whatever that was shielding it from sunlight, it began to get well. And so we began on and on in unconsciousness for that same reason, to try to compel us to move more quickly towards the light. Yeah. That's such a useful way to look at it that, we find a way to move towards the light. I mean, having having and I find that people, a lot of people that have experience, awakening and have found the light, a lot of them do so because they have been in darkness. They've seen great darkness. They've seen sometimes total darkness. And that is a great contrast because suddenly you're like, oh, there's light over here. Now I see it, and now I want to grow towards it. So I that's a beautiful, kind of way to describe it. Well, light is nothing but information. That's all that light is. It's information and it's and coming upon us to digest that and apply it, make it applicable. I mean, you can you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink right? I mean, the no. Go ahead. I was just going to say, you know, and then using our earlier in that earlier analogy of running away from the stick, you know, being deprived of the light is running away from the stick until you get a bite of that apple. And when you get a bite of the apple, that's the sunshine, and that's your capacity to use the information that has been made available for you. Right? When the student is ready, that teacher will appear. Yes. And it's and sometimes it's remembering how that apple taste and not losing sight of it, not losing the sense of it, not not forgetting that it ever happened or. Well, there it is. The diligence. Yeah, yeah. And and that's intention and that's, that's, that goes along with the awareness, the diligence, the intention to, to stay on some sort of path. You can still cut your own path, but you've still got to be intentional about it. Right? Right. Well, that's assuming responsibility for ourselves. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I, I mean, sometimes it is that simple that we have to stop and say to ourselves, I'm going to be responsible for myself instead of letting anyone else. No religion and no community and no other person, I'm going to be responsible for myself. And that's the scary thing. Because it's just then it's just us with ourself, and then we have to be comfortable with that. And that's a that goes back into what you were talking about with those processes and, and coming to terms with that, with that ego, where if you change those, those, foundational beliefs of your perception of separation and understand that you are the creator, experiencing yourself at this range of consciousness without the influences of societal hegemony and, and religion in particular, then there is no right or wrong. You're trying you're testing. And what feels good. We keep what doesn't feel good. We get rid of. And that is the ultimate measure of whether something is true or not. Does it feel right? Does this feel like the truth? David? Chalmers, the very famous, philosopher proposed in the early 90s and one of his books, that there was a hard question of consciousness and his summary of it or his, his his, metaphor for it was, you know, I can look at a sunset and say that it's a beautiful sunset. That's my determination. But my brother, standing right next to me, sees the same sunset and doesn't have the same feeling. And so there's the hard question of consciousness. If that was the commonality of beauty, why don't we feel the same thing? It's because we perceive ourselves as separate, because of free will. And when I have created a different lens to interpret my experiences than my brother has, there in is the diversity and the infinity of the exploration, or the creator by itself. Yeah, there's almost an infinite number of ways to experience the universe there is in it, but it is infinite. And there's more than one creation. Yeah. Hey, that's absolutely that boggles the mind. You know, we're we're comparing. Are there multiple universes? Yes. There's an infinite number of universes, but these are all within one creation. There are multiple creation that also have an infinite number of universes. When you're when you're working with someone, say they've they've got an essence of the apple. Maybe they've tasted it, maybe they've seen it, but they've got an essence of the apple. And they've moving back towards that. What do you think is, the most common thing that that that gets in someone's way is they kind of move back towards the apple. They get, they get frustrated primarily because their lack of understanding of what it is that they're experiencing. And so just offering guidance on what my experiences, have been and help them interpret what it is that they're experiencing so that they can feel more comfortable with it. One of the more, difficult things to realize is our progression, received, proceed in a series of stair steps and we get a lot of information, and then we're intentionally giving a flat period where we don't get a lot of information and that and there anxious about that because they think, well, I'm just not working hard enough because I'm not getting more of the information. And we're giving these plateaus to allow you to, digest later ideas that you've changed within you and learned, you know, with the additional light that you've incorporated in it. And so when you've adequately digested that and more information will come, you will ask for it. You have to ask for it. And so you'll fill your your plate again. And after you are full, then you'll reach another plateau and it'll be a stair step process. And that's by design to allow us to fully explore awareness at that level of consciousness. We we are, we progress. The density. If you think of the density as a mile, every density is a mile. There are inches all along the way. So we progress by inches and so we can only handle so many inches and fully understand the light that has been brought to those in that segment of inches. And so we have to to digest it. And really incorporated is part of us. And then we get more we progressed through more inches until we ultimately get to the end of the mile. And so learning patience with ourselves is a very difficult task, particularly when we feel that we've been making progress. When we have this ambition, which is another thing that the Buddha taught, you know, to chill and just let it happen, is to, you know, that it's going to go in steps and we need to learn that about ourselves and be patient with that and understand that, that, that still productive time when we've reached that plateau, that plateau is giving us the opportunity to more fully explore the changes that have taken place and the light that we have received. And so that digestion period is very important, because that actually takes us much deeper into the understanding of what it is that we just accumulated. And that's usually a very difficult point for a people, is it. But it just stopped. You know, I'm just I don't feel like I'm making progress. Okay. Well, chill. I'll kill you, jet. You know, go deeper inside, explore those individual elements that you have now incorporated into yourself, or that you've healed or whatever. You know, that that they used, that they're in, and use this as the beneficial time that is intended to be. Yeah, patience and grace can be difficult to come by sometimes. And for me, like, like like you were talking about what the Buddha said, like you kind of take the universe as it comes to you. And I think there's also an element of, I don't know the best way to say, but sometimes I'm meeting the universe halfway. But and you do that in kind of a more effortless, way without expectations necessarily. And then the universe kind of sends you this, the next step. Well, it does, and but you got to ask the question. You got to demonstrate that you're ready for. Yes. For you. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Your question is and tells the universe, okay, well, he's ready for it because he asked the question. And you can they can learn whatever you want to learn. And that comes up quite a bit when I'm talking to people in spiritual circles that that have some form have had some form of awakening. And, and our teachers are, seekers, seekers and teachers both same time. Is that it's, it's patience, Well, it's patience with awareness. Yeah, it is patience with awareness. It it is, and it's everybody is going to see we all have different perspectives. And so sometimes as a student, you know, or as a teacher, it's about being able to, as a student, understand that there are other perspectives out there. And even as a teacher, it's about understanding the perspective of students so that you can kind of show the way or give an essence of the way. Every, every experience is a subject, object interchange, and we are both state teacher and student in every experience. So and maybe the object providing information. But I'm also being provided with the opportunity to see the resonance of that and be the student of my behavior, actions, information or whatever. And the same is true, you know, relatively, you know, assigned roles of teacher, student are misnomers because we are both teacher and student in every interaction. Right? Well, is there anything I mean, we could probably talk about this for forever. I probably I would enjoy it, actually. But is there anything that we haven't covered yet that you think you would want the audience to hear? To see? Well, and maybe to summarize the, the process of enlightenment is synonymous with the process of consciousness evolution. Everyone is enlightened to the degree that they have allowed themselves to become enlightened. You know, most people perceive enlightenment as a destination because of the Buddha's successes, but that just allowed the Buddha to be a model for us to emulate. We are meant to enjoy our experiences, to revel in our experiences, and not to to demean our experiences in favor of trying to become the Buddha. That's not going to happen at this range of consciousness. The Buddha was the most unique individual. It has a specific purpose. And so becoming aware and becoming awareness allows us to surrender these past beliefs that we've incorporated and incorporated in our heritage. And as we remove those beliefs, then that creates a void. And happiness is our natural state of being. And just like water fills a void, that happiness fills the void that is left by evacuating these beliefs that perpetuate our stress and suffering. And so the more diligently we invert our awareness and undergo the healing process, the happier that we get. Understanding bliss is nothing more than the absence of stress. And so by focusing on healing ourselves, we are escalating our happiness. We are becoming models for others that have, and maybe not awakened yet, or are not along as far along the path as we are. So, you know, we're pulling a huge portion of the population that we interact with along as well as when we work, upon ourselves and heal ourselves. That's a really good summary. I would definitely, once again, I would have people go back and listen to that again because I think it's it's worth hearing a couple of times. You'll think there is there anywhere you'd like to point our our viewers to our audience that, where they could reach you and find you? I know you've you've got a book coming out. I do a well, I have a website. Okay. It just very simply, D. Dean Graves, all one word. No periods or anything. Org. Okay. And I have, all my contact information, a summary of, you know, what I do and all that kind of stuff. I also have the books listed there. I have three books that are, now available on Amazon. The one that would possibly be a precursor to the new book that's coming out. It's called The Identity Model. And it deals specifically and more elaborately with this here banner that we create and how it manifests in our society to create stress in suffering among the population. And I have specific exercises that people can self apply in the back that are dramatically effective in healing PTSD and traumas and all this emotional baggage that we've collected. And that, again, is called the identity model. The book that is, coming out the side the 1st of September. You can preorder now. It's a the e-book is available through all the e-book sources, but the printed copy won't be on the on the bookshelves until, September 1st, probably. And that is by, as I say, compendium ebook. And it, it goes through how creation was formed. This the structure of it with all the densities and what the different densities do and how they interact. It describes the aura, the archetypical mind, which is how we process thought. It is a design that requires us to create this here, a pant, explain Christ consciousness, the different types of people that are incarnate on earth at this time and have been for eight years. And it will, it'll provide an awful lot of light. Yeah. I mean, people like it, and and you've you've obviously, I mean, you've covered a lot of what's going to be in it, just kind of the tip of the iceberg here. And so I really hope people can, can go get it and kind of sink their teeth into it. Well, it would dispel a lot of dogma. People are looking for something to replace their dogma. We should all be looking for stuff to replace our doctrine. That should be, well, that's my understanding. Yeah. One of the podcasts that I do is called chatting with the Arcturians, and my significant other is a vocal channel. I'm not a vocal channel. I do communicate with my higher self pretty significantly and others, but I'm not a vocal channel. But she is. And we chat with the Arcturians and the Arcturians have, confirmed reiterated most of the information that I put in the book. So, our chats are very casual, and they have announced that, they don't predict the future, but it is highly probable that we're going to begin receiving visitation from a variety of different, extraterrestrial civilizations. And this, may start as early as this fall, and this will be undeniable. They'll be landing. They say they'll be landing in government parks and in government buildings so governments can no longer say it's swamp gas. So, you know, we're we're being put into the position of having the opportunity to interface more with the, galactic community. And I would say I love that because, I mean, we're definitely not alone. I mean, universe is infinite, so we're only alone because we believe we're alone. Exactly. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So, that's all I got. And that's you guys. Not that great question. No, no, I go on for days. No, this was a this is a great conversation. I this is way this is why I do what I do. So that I can have really great conversations like this with people like you. So. Well, I appreciate, the work that you do. And, you know, I hope more people, pick up the gantlet and start doing the work as well. The more information that is out there in, the more it's readily available, the more the population we can educate and hopefully transform 100%. And for the audience out there, we'll have, link to the website in the description. Please go click it, go check him out, go get his books and, take constructive, constructive action, deliberate, intentional and and where action to go, be more joyful, find more bliss and and live your life that you can live so, live your best life. Yeah. Live your live your best life. Yeah. And, Dean, thank you so much for being on. And, we'll probably talk to you again. One of these days, and I hope so. I've. I've enjoyed it tremendously. John. You've been a great host. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.