Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And we have a returning guest. Elliott Dacher, MD is joining us from Martha's Vineyard. Good day to you, Elliott. How are ya?

Elliott Dacher
I'm doing just fine. Good day. How are you?

Greg Voisen
I'm wonderful. I'm here in the it's not sunny this morning, but Encinitas. It's a foggy morning. We were used to that here. How about you things? Good.

Elliott Dacher
Nice, sunny here and I spent my winters in Encinitas.

Greg Voisen
Oh, you do? Well, then you and I are gonna have to get together when you're when you're out here. So Elliott's been on the show before he's written many books, and I'm gonna let my listeners know a little bit about you. Dr. Dacher studies and teaches the principles and practices of health and healing, with a special focus on inner development, human flourishing. His work emphasizes the traditional goals of medicine, the end of distress and suffering and the promotion of each individual's fullest potential. I was born and raised in New York, he received his bachelor's degree from Queens College, see you in why and attended medical school at LSU. And why buffalo his postgraduate training was completed at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. And on the Harvard Medical Service at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He's board certified internal medicine. In 1996, he left medical practice to begin his in depth study of the principles and practices of consciousness, and health and the ongoing studies of the mind body medicine, integral health and human flourishing, which is pursued, pursued amongst the wisdom traditions of Asia is unique education and inner aspects of health inherited led him to his most recent book, which is this is the one of the first ones was aware, awake, alive. And if you would, Elliott, hold up the book that we're going to be speaking about, which is called meditation and beyond, there you go. Peace that suppresses understanding happiness, without a cause freedom from the noun, okay? So, you know, you have several books, people will put a link to your website, so people can go look at the books that you've written, but this book, in particular, meditation and beyond. And I always like the beyond part, because, you know, you speak about that extensively. And I think it's important for people to know that meditation to just actually, how do you want to say it relieves stress and have better relationships and is one thing and you state that it's evolving to better fit our modern world? You speak about what you refer to as the awareness based meditation? Can you speak with the listeners about this type of meditation, and where you're trying to go with this?

Elliott Dacher
Yes, small, most mass meditations in western world have to do with suppressing the active overactive mind, thoughts, feelings, images, and flowing through the mind, to quiet the mind and calm the mind outweighs the focus is really on thoughts, feelings, images, as somehow rather distracting was suppressing them. But that's really a very entry level way of dealing with the mind. Most foundational part of the mind, is our awareness. We're born into awareness, we are there as infants, we can experience our senses, we can experience in time, our mind. So awareness, just pure, simple knowing, knowing that I'm alive knowing that I have sight, I have sound your thoughts, test, not basic consciousness, and to begin to learn how to rest in that natural self and that essential self. And that basic part of us would read last, because he spends our time in the mind dealing with metal objects, mental experiences, stress, etc. But we don't actually rest the foundational elements of the mind, which is a simple, pure being this presence and awareness.

Greg Voisen
Well, what about the, you know, many times meditation, they talk about the monkey mind. And you know, really a lot of people ruminate. I'm going to use the word ruminate. They ruminate on things over and over and over and over and over again. Right. And one of the techniques it's taught is really about how to quiet the monkey mind. On the other hand, you'll hear a lot of meditation teachers speak about, no, just let that stuff come in and let it be there and accept it for what it is. What would you say about that because I heard it. I hear it both ways. Well, sensory

Elliott Dacher
experiences, thoughts, feelings, images are things that are never going to stop coming. That's the nature of the day to day would narrow mind. It's not a question of that sturdiness, in, there's nothing innate or inherent in a thought or a feeling, or sensory experience that's going to distract us, is how we relate to it. And the relationship we normally have to it is we like it or we don't like it. So we immediately have a preference, we pull it towards us, if we like it, we push it away, we add a drama or a story to it. So we get involved with what goes through the mind. And the natural way of experiencing the mind, there's something to be aware of to be observed the mind you may be observing stillness. Awareness itself, may be observing a thought feeling or image. But if you feed it with interest, you feed it with the story. If you feed it with I like that I don't like it gets bigger, bigger, it stays there in time. So the whole idea is simply to note the way the mind actually works. And be let it be let it just go. It'll stop by itself. Because

Greg Voisen
you give it some time. I know I went to an Easter Sunday service at SRF. I'm a devotee, and it was cold outside and it was drizzling a bit and are all these people in parkas? And you know, the Nan was up there saying, well, now let's meditate. And you're thinking, Man, it's cold. And you know, I'm used to sitting in my house and doing it was kind of funny, because my mind was playing lots of tricks on me. You know, you mentioned something in the book. And you say that in the 70s. And I would say now as well, I don't think it's just the 70s. But you mentioned in the 70s, that meditation is being touted to relieve stress, increase rate relaxation, improve sleep, and our relationships. While meditation does bring temporary relief from those conditions. That this is you say this is the lesser of the aim of meditation. Okay, I get that. Can you speak to the listeners about the deeper benefits of what you call human flourishing and beyond? Because that's really the where we're going with the beyond?

Elliott Dacher
Yeah, well, one begins to access this natural awareness, and begins to rest and begins to watch the world from this. That natural awareness, which is there from the beginning is not contaminated by thoughts, feelings, past history, or anything that's gone before. So it's very simple and has a built in sort of like a perfume, serenity to it, what the Bible calls the peace, that surpasses understanding, that's not to calm this in the ordinary mind, that you get when you work with a variety of techniques. This is a stillness, far more profound, isn't intuitive wisdom, there. There is a deep profound selfless compassion and love there. There is a freedom from the known from all previous experience, trauma, etc. So there are qualities of openness, wholeness, and possibility at rest in his natural self, which have been reduced down when we've taken on this name that we've been given, and filled it with our past experiences, and focus our time on that.

Greg Voisen
You know, between the Zen Teachings and all the various teachings of meditation, there's so many different techniques, there's, there's grief meditation, there's Tang land, there's, you know, and I know many of my listeners know these, right? So it's, no, you're breathing in the heaviness, you're breathing out the release of, of that heaviness to heal the world. From your perspective, because you've been doing meditation for so long, and you've been exposed to so many different meditation techniques. Don't all of these techniques that are being taught, have a similar path to reaching this full union with a higher source? So I think,

Elliott Dacher
I think they both all have two aspects to them. One is the improvement of the day to day human life. They all have that. And the other is going beyond that. Most techniques, most methods will focus on improving the quality of day to day life, they will not go beyond that, because a technique or method can't take you to a place that has no techniques or methods, that's non cognitive. And so to really learn how to drop into awareness, presence, our natural self, without a technique, without a method is to learn how to rest and that more and more during the day as well as during the formal practice session. So in a sense, you can say the old lead to the same place, but they really don't. If you purchase Made them most of them are we satisfied with the commerce, so mind, and that's it.

Greg Voisen
So you'll get the relaxation, and you'll get the relief from stress and maybe improve your, your sleep. But you may not get to the very deep point. And we're gonna let our listeners go on a very brief little meditation with you. And I'm going to tell them to, there'll be a link to Amazon to the book into your website. But the reality is, is that you also have in this book, a QR code, and we'll get to that we'll talk about it. So you've got some of these meditations recorded. Now, you cite a great poem from France and Francis Thomas, called the Hound of Heaven. I thought it was great. You've cited actually several poems within the in your book. Can you tell the listeners a bit about Thompson and the significant meaning of the poem, and this that, you know, this irrepressible urge that quickens what you call the soul and spirit toward recognized recognition and reunion of the true self or the divine essence.

Elliott Dacher
While Thompson was a young British man, went to medical school, much like I did, gave that a very early in life, to write poetry and literature, how to go on that life ended up on the streets, addicted to opioids, I had a very difficult life. And eventually it was taken in by someone who recognizes poetry as being of great value. And in his recovery from opiates, spent many years at an English Catholic priory. And it was yeah, they wrote the Hound of Heaven.

Greg Voisen
He died at 47, right, and 47, correct,

Elliott Dacher
have tuberculosis. He wrote that wonderful walk about this urge that we all feel, it may take different forms, because the sense that we know there's nothing more there's something more, there's something chasing us is something yet we haven't touched in life is same office enough, we really can't put it in words. And so this poem speaks about, in his sense, God, but it could be our basic self, our deeper nature, our essence, is constantly trying to pull us back home, to the source to the richness and depth of human life and will let us go because no Hound is quiet. And it is talked for a long period of time, it's patient, and it keeps on coming. And many of us feel that, but we turn to the wrong place, we turn to outside things, which cannot give us that heaven. And we often turn to meditation techniques or other techniques, which get it was quiet, but we're gonna lose the heaviness there.

Greg Voisen
Do you think Thompson and you know, I've, I haven't had Michael POLIN on the show, but I've read many of his books. And, you know, there's a lot of people today that doing ayahuasca and the opioids that the Thompson took, obviously give you an altered state of consciousness as a result of and you're a doctor, so you get this, I don't need to talk about it too much. But there are people that are trying to get into different states or levels of consciousness as a result of micro dosing, various plant based substances that will alter the mind. Alright, so the question I would have for you, do you believe that Thompson, from his opioid use, got himself to a different space? I would like to really know that from an MD standpoint.

Elliott Dacher
Well, the book that I liked the most on this is William James, the writer of Varieties of Religious Experience in the 1890s. And he looked at all kinds of different ways in which people had this, what he called the religious mind, this sense of wholeness, completeness, fullness, flow, serenity, joy, whether that was drugs or whether that was a religious experience, or any other form, and he found certain characteristics. The first one is the most essential one, he found in every single experience of the natural self or the Divine Self, with a sacred self. It was first a loss of personal identity, there was a loss of ego is loss of the sense of I was no control, no history, when that dissolves away and all of those experience, what remains is our natural self. We try to achieve the same way with a natural meditation, and that has all the same qualities no matter how you come at it. Its whole is authentically believed to be truth and is generally transient. Almost one really practices and works with it. But the key is the dissolution or the lack of investment, or rumination on the personal self. That personal self dissipates. What remains is their largest self. You know,

Greg Voisen
there's a doctor here in Del Mar, Steve Berman, and I think I introduced you to him I'm not certain of I did or not, but he wrote healing beyond pills and potions. And he like you, he was an emergency room doctor. You weren't exactly that. But he did that for 25 plus years. He's in his mid-70s now, and he's, he is my hypnotist. Interestingly, back then he was hypnotizing his patients before they would go under surgery, he would do hypnosis, the ones that would accept it. And what I found interesting about his technique was the ability to really get into this altered state of consciousness pretty rapidly as a result of hypnosis. Any thoughts about that before we go on to the five minute meditation?

Elliott Dacher
Well, I think it's really quite easy to drop into one's natural self. That's the ministerial thing. I've been teaching meditation for 30 or more years. And I found now last number years, as I just without techniques, just type people into the natural self. It's very simple. It's not complicated. Why is it not complicated, because it's already always there, it's not creating something, it's moving away. The obscurations, the veils, which is basically the personal self and his thoughts, feelings, images, problems, concerns, habits, and so on. So it's quite easy to actually introduce people to this much easier than struggling with the technique, because most techniques are trying to deal with mental noise ends up creating a struggle. Well, if you

Greg Voisen
want to be in this state, and I remember what the nuns said, Sunday was to move from the ego consciousness to the soul consciousnesses, which is what we actually seek. It really is about your practice of meditation, because the ego consciousness is always there, you're never gonna get rid of it. The reality is how do you live with it? Right. And I think that's a big one. I think a great way for people that are on the other end of this call to actually get an experience might be just like right now, a five minute brief meditation if you'd be willing to take us down that path, or maybe not even five minutes. But

Elliott Dacher
as long as you think we would

Greg Voisen
be to kind of drop in, because you know, there's nothing like the true experience. Here we are on Zoom 1000s of listeners, this is your great opportunity, everybody to actually have Elliott, talk us through and get us to an altered state of consciousness.

Elliott Dacher
Well, I think we can do in every few minutes said two things, I want to show two very natural experiences. The first one will be calming the mind with breathing. We took two sides, every minute those that built into ventilators a size, the deep breath in, out. And a Resting, resting in no breath at all, just a sensation of the breath. That resting in the breath. There cannot be cognition there. Because it turns off, suppresses restless has aspects of the brain called neural default mode. So a very quick, natural way of quieting the mind. So we're going to do that first. Deep breath in. Just hold and rest in the cessation of breath at the end of the exploration. Experience the stillness that's naturally there. No technique. Yeah. Deep breath in. Stillness is naturally there. The presence of beingness. There cannot be any restless mind when the breathing is ceased. And the breathing cessation at the end of an inspiration and exploration is normally there. To go a little further, we're gonna go back to the normal breath. Now you could do that practice longer. And it's preliminary, that'll quiet the course noise of the mind. We now can just go to a normal breath on that slow, harmonious easy, which kind of simulates his breath hold. And then you come into the very present moment. Just come into the here and now. Sense of observing sense of awareness. Just being, nothing to do. No place to go. No one to be. Just like oh, hold sense of your personal self. Thoughts, feelings, judgments, ideas, beliefs. Put them aside for the moment. Just be aware of when what remains simple awareness simple presence, thoughts, feelings, images arises a will have a Teflon awareness, let them be let them go through natural background if you don't pay attention or feed them with attention or interest they'll dissipate on their own. And what's left? Is this awareness. So there's no fighting with our pencil commentary. There's just been with

Elliott Dacher
us, okay? Who cares? It's not about me. It's not who I am. Awareness, presence beings whose muscles should also be activated right restless aspects of the mind. Hearing the now experience that nothing is she has everything that's here right now. Already, always.

Greg Voisen
Thank you for that. That was, you know, when you do a podcast show like this, and you go into something like that I've done this before. And from my listeners, you get it. But you can already tell that the way Elliott approaches this meditation beyond is certainly unique. And for all those who've never meditated, who actually took a few minutes with us just then. Thank you for that. And for all of you who are regular meditators, I hope you receive something different, you will definitely from reading his book, I know I did, you can get it in Kindle version as well. And so the book is, is out there, it's on Amazon. So please go pick up a copy of meditation and beyond. You know, Elliott, you mentioned in the book that the second aim of man, meditation is transcendence, or transcendent. That is going beyond our acquired personal identity, which you just mentioned in the meditation, to the foundational essence of our being. How can our listeners take the leap in their meditation practice to go deeper? Or maybe it isn't a leap? But in my estimation, I think for many, it is a leap. What would you say about that? Because everybody seeks This? This? I don't think this isn't something that if you're alive and living and aware that you don't seek as a matter of fact, you wish you could sustain this state all day long, right? I noticed and I've actually gotten to see the Dalai Lama speak many times in person, and I was just dumbfounded by how happy and how often he laughs You know, you're just like, this guy's laughing all the time. It's like every other third sentence he's going you know, and I, I respect him for that. Because I think that happiness is so apparent, and somebody who obviously seems so calm, okay, so speak with transit.

Elliott Dacher
Well, the pope transcending what we're going beyond is our belief, our belief that we are our personal identity, his personal identity was not there at birth, they gave us a name you name is Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary. And then a lifetime of this Mary becomes a container for all of the life experiences that we've had, that are all that we then call ourself. That's what we believe we are. So we're transcending is the belief that the tenacious belief that we are this personal self? Now once we can move beyond that, through understanding through meditation, we open up the self-revealing presence, the self-revealing essence of self and its qualities of human flourishing, because it's your Ready there. So what we do is simply move away, we move away, we lose faith in his personal self, we have this more desire to have this place inside. Now then we have to let go of the seeker and the seeking, because the seeking and seeking are also an ego event, they're an ego structure. So they help us in the beginning. But then we have to go into the kind of meditation we went into without any expectation, desires, attachment, hope, control, because all of that is ego. As long as that's there, the veil is all part. So we learned to just let all of that go. And just simply, easily, naturally, carefree. Just be set simple.

Greg Voisen
It is. It is a practice now. And I and that's why they call it the practice of meditation. Maybe practice isn't the right word. But I think that it still is in when you awaken to your true self, by practicing what you call awareness based meditation. And that's the ultimate aim. Is this awareness? Right? I think that's all we really have to be is to be aware. And if we are aware of what we're doing to ourselves and others around us, we can change something, because it's really about how do we alter? How do we change? What ways can our listeners reduce this sub conscious egoic nature that separates themselves from soul and spirit? I know this is a pretty deep question. But the reality is, is that I had to get it in because I thought, hey, how it because it's always separating us from the source.

Elliott Dacher
Whereas there is a level of disillusionment and frustration that comes about our culture tells us that this home that we lost, when we left, our youth is natural self, that will get it back by going out there, by through name through faith, through achievement recognition, through money through sexuality through intimacy, that we will get some permanent replacement for the home, we lost, we lost our infancy. So we will eventually develop the recognition, wait a minute, all these things out there and not giving it to me. I see very wealthy people, not happening for them either. I see very famous people not happening for them, either. We begin to have a disillusionment that this self and it's seeking in the outside world for can only be found inside, we went through that disillusionment, begin to chip away a little bit. And they will begin to have these experiences, these moments of nature, intimacy, beauty, art, where all of a sudden, with thrust into a state of flow. And that flow that we receive in any of those kinds of circumstances, is momentary and transient. But if we look, we'll see our egos are not there. So we have moments. So we're touching this place, naturally, where we get to orient ourselves more towards that experience, without having the bend be dependent on circumstance to create it. So slowly become more familiar with the joy of a natural self. And at the same time, increasingly disillusioned with our efforts in the outside world, which are what our culture has taught us to do, because we stopped teaching, searching outside was not inside our own economy will collapse.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, I think that the people that want to use some kind of plant based medicine, they're trying to hasten it, it's almost like well, I've never had the experience I want. And I want to speed it up. I want to make this happen quicker, I want to make it happen better, I want to do whatever. But the reality is, is that you have everything within you to get there without using some mind altering medicine. And in your book on chapter and the mind body, you talk about the limitations of the medical model that reduces health and disease to solely biological factors. And I think, you know, the we live in a society that's spending an excess of a trillion dollars on health care today. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better. And you were a doctor for so long internal medicine. And if there's anybody that had an opportunity to not only see patients, but probably operate on patients and see what's going on inside the body and how we create this disease, it would be somebody like you and it always fascinates me about how many consciously aware individuals physicians who've gone through all of this training, like you and Steve and many others who've been on the show, end up doing like functional medicine or ended up doing medicine. Haitian programs are ended up doing all these alternative practices, which are not conventional and fundamentally the medicine that you were taught, how can we reach a whole healing by understanding the power of the mind and the healing process? Because there are a lot of people that would like to heal.

Elliott Dacher
Yeah, I think the first thing we have to do, of course, there are many approaches that are could be helpful. Biofeedback, acupuncture, and so on. But I think ultimately, when you look at the Dalai Lama, as you were saying, you see joy on his face had a piece, that's what I saw the first time I saw him, that's what took it into you over 12 years, yearly, three to six months a year to study with them, because there's something of well-being that is there. And even to the extent that the mind and the spirit want to actualize can lessen that and help remedy disease. More than that, it provides wellbeing, well-being is not related to the presence or absence of disease. Well, being is a state of health. You and I have seen people die in great despair. We've also seen people die, and Greg, Craig, grace and peace, what is the difference, the death is the same in both the differences that is held a different ways held in the soul, and in the spirit, and here's well-being there to the very end. So it's important to separate the issue of wellbeing, happiness and health from the issue of disease, you can be quite well, and your soul and your spirit and that piece, and still have physical disease. So we get to for one, we get access to a permanent and unchanging source of well-being. And we begin to lessen the factor of an abnormal mental state in the presence of particularly chronic disease.

Greg Voisen
How much do you believe, Elliott, that it's how one relates to their finitude from a standpoint of understanding their finitude to actually be at peace with the fact that we're only given a certain number of years here, we never know when, right. COVID was a great example of that and taught people I think a lot about how precious life is. What would you say about the relationship to understanding, just death, many of the people think of that as permanent, I think I'm not, obviously I do spirituality program on spirituality or as well. So I have my own opinions about it. But 1000s of my listeners, I'm sure don't believe the same thing that I believe about reincarnation, or any of that. I probably even have some atheists that are listened to the show. So what would you say just from, I wouldn't say a scientific standpoint, but just from the educational standpoint of how one is able to remove the fears associated with finitude. Because, you know, you see some people that go into there I have a father who was in his 90s. He's so afraid of dying. Right. And, and I guess there's got to be a connection between that fear and the willingness to let go.

Elliott Dacher
Yes, I mean, I would say who is it that's fearing? Is it the deeper natural self that's fearing? Where's the ego self-fearing is Lois? Well, I'm sure it's the ego self. Right. So the problem again, is, to the extent that we are entire focus is preserving our ego, our I, of which our attachment to the body is a big part of it. To the extent that that's there, we're going to suffer that loss. But when people are in this natural state of being, if you ask them whether there's any time, they'll say, no, you ask them zestoretic, do you have a beginning and an end? They'll say no, is an entirely different experience, how outside the ego, in terms of life and death. And so, again, is the ego that's afraid, so long as we're living in that ego structure, I have no other alternative, deeper I are going to suffer. That is

Greg Voisen
that is very simply put and very true. To me. It's true to me. You know, you have a chapter called homecoming. And you ask the question, why is it so difficult to see through the core truth of our life to the essence of who we are, and have always been? You state we've forgotten who we are and deeply believe in who we are not. Again, much of what we've been talking about in this podcast so far. Up till now What advice do you have to awaken to the true self, and realize what we are capable of becoming? Because to me, human flourishing, is really about what our potential is about what we can become. I've had Steven Kotler on here many times, he's the head of the flow Genome Project. He's written six books, he's prolific about the study of hacking flow, right? I'm not 100% Certain you can hack flow. But there are people out there who are certainly attempting to hack flow, what would you say about getting to this, this true, who we are not who we believe we are?

Elliott Dacher
Well, to begin with the text, the devotion, that is the devotion that comes from having tasted, we all have a foreknowledge of what that places what that sacred, divine places, we've all had that experience, maybe in Charleston, other moments in life, as I mentioned, before, we all have a taste of that. And that taste has to become strong enough. And the frustration or disillusionment with the ego seeking has become strong enough that you kind of cross a point, a pivotal point, in which you say, you know, there's no more while worthwhile effort, in terms of investing in trying to take extract from the world, Joe harvest from the world, a permanent happiness or serenity or peace. It's not there that way, through the ego. And at the same time, I've touched the place where it, which is golden, the, it's live that way every day would be heaven on earth. And I want that. And then, you know, when I started really into this journey, it was when I saw the Tibetans in Dharamsala, the first time, I looked on their faces that Oh, my God, they've got what I want, like that movie, you know, I want which, which he just that. And I went back for three to six months a year for 12 years to study with him. I'm not saying that's what everybody has to do. We can reach it easily, more quickly, with the right kind of help. But it has that double threat. That sense, you know, one more relationship, one more title, one more degree, is not going to give me sustained peace and happiness. I don't want to die without it. And yeah, I

Greg Voisen
think that's I think you hit the nail on the head, sustained peace and happiness. You know, the Dalai Lama, which you said you studied under, it's almost like he's got a sustained peace and happiness, I think, at the center of a tornado at the core. It's really that is, you know, could you just stand there, right? And the essence, yes, you could, if you were at the center, everything else is chaos, you know, the velocity, the winds and everything. But I think that's a good example of being able to stand in the midst of all that's going on today, and still be able to keep our peace and happiness is something that's really quite profound. Because most of us are drawn into the Maya, of all of this stuff. Right. And it's, it's, it's an allure, but it's so temporary. All of it's so temporary, the only thing that is permanent is peace and happiness. And, you know, you share in your book 10 session audio practices through a QR code that people can access for 15 minute practices, and all they got to do is put their phone up to the QR code and download it or it'll take them to the page, can you speak about the audio recordings of what the listeners can expect?

Elliott Dacher
These are 10 recordings, which progressively take the individual, there's a few minutes of teaching on each one. And then meditation mostly through the kind of meditation we did before. But in a more progressive way, a little bit more detailed, kind of graded depth. So it's a way of taking somebody through that process. So they have somebody with them meaning in this case, and so they come to a place where they're learning the whole time about their personal self, doubt the true self, and so on. So this meditation is 10 session progression of what we did today.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a great opportunity, folks. And inside the book, you'll see it there. There's a QR code, when you get the book, whether it's a Kindle version, or if you want to hold the book up again, that would be great whether you buy the physical copy of the book or not. You literally have that QR code in there to get to these and I haven't been through them yet, but I'm going to so Eliana, I would say, great for you for putting those in. Because that's very experiential. It's not just reading words on the page. It's really listening to something and being able to do something with it. Now, to kind of wrap up our interview, meditation is a great opportunity for people to heal so much of their lives, so many elements of their lives, and most importantly, to connect, as you've been talking about, throughout this interview our true self, which requires a deeper dive into the practice, in other words, meditation and beyond not just to get relief from stress temporarily, or to build a relationship, what three things would you inform our listeners about to help them find their true self, Elliott?

Elliott Dacher
Well, first of all, the begin to recognize that you are not and we're not born, your personal self, and you are not your personal self, and the personal self cannot, cannot achieve what is only there within sight. To realize it's only inside, that we can achieve this sustained peace, happiness, joy, and delight that we're all aiming for. And to self-remember, during the day and only practice during day, remember, just stop for a moment, maybe take one of those deep breaths and halls and just say who am I? Who am I? I Am, I exist, I'm aware. That's why was the very beginning. So visited, momentarily during the day, multiple times, visited during practice. And if we can self-remember, these little islands of transcendent experience, our deeper self will become larger landmasses. And slowly, it will underlie the foundation of our day to day life. So instead of our day to day experiences, dropping into the ego structure, with Oles reactivity, interpretation, judgment and so on, our day to day activity drops into stillness, peace, joy, ease, and it makes everything different on the outside, or different on the inside. So those are the things I would do, to really be aware of the personal self, the self that goes beyond that. Practice, remembering who we are and what we truly are.

Greg Voisen
And for my listeners, we balance that out with Elliott Dacher, he's got a book out called Meditation and Beyond, we'll put links to that we'll put links to his website, please go visit the website, please go use that QR code as that's there. Elliott's been an honor and pleasure to have you back on inside personal growth, to speak about your new book, and to give some greater level of awareness about what meditation can do, and what people are capable of doing as a result of these practices. And I want to say Namaste, to Eliot and all my listeners that are out there. See the God within yourself, but Namaste, it's there and use these practices, to better your life, and to better the lives of people around you because of the way that because of who you've become as a result of doing these practices, Namaste to Eliot, thanks for your time today. So appreciate you and all that you're doing to help heal the world.

Elliott Dacher
Thank you. My pleasure. And thank you for this work to brings to other people these new approaches and ideas.

Greg Voisen
My pleasure.