040 Rey Brannen: How to Cultivate Your Abundance Mindset With Lucid Dreaming?

Transcript (Made with AI)

CK LIN 0:00
I am excited today to have Ray with us today. Ray is an entrepreneur and investor, a student of human potential, bio hacker, just master of many different domains. And in the last few minutes when we hung out, he shared with me a lot of the different books, the different practices that he has. So I can't wait for him to share his story and his disciplines as a way to open up his heart and share more of himself to the world. So welcome to the show. Rey, thank you so much for being here.

REY BRANNEN 0:35
Thank you for having me, brother.

CK LIN 0:36
Yeah. So why don't we actually jump right in and start off by this delicious coffee that you made here you can start off from from the very, very tactical. So you does a lot of concoction that you put in there. That's things that I hadn't seen before. So tell us what's in it and why you put in it.

REY BRANNEN 0:56
Basically found a gentleman here, Vancouver who runs a place called the cocoa monk. And he's extremely passionate about sourcing and the highest grade cacao and I've drunken I've had a lot of cacao in my life but this particular caco that he sources you know, there's no intermediary, he goes directly to the farmer and he finds specific genotypes of the of the cacao. And, you know, it's like a sommelier a in terms of wine, he has this ability to just, and the first time I drank his cocoa in the shop, I felt, you know, my body just, you know, amping up a bit. And so, you know, I think the cacao a sacred medicine if I'm not mistaken, you know, there's this term. Theobroma is like, you know, it's related to the gods and the, the Mayan Aztec way of thinking. And so it's a very heart-opening medicine. But most of us humans Just think of it as something good to eat, you know, cacao. In a biohacking term, I add espresso beans to it and blend them all up in an essentially like a bulletproof coffee. It's got to MCT oil and grass fed butter the usual and you know, nuts just almond butter, some time to add and cashews and other things pistachios, like to mix it up daily have a little bit of different flavor profiles. This particular one we have the beans are from Madagascar, and sometimes just getting from Nicaragua or Fiji or various places that he sources, I just trust his guidance on that.

CK LIN 2:49
What's the benefit? What do you do it for cognitive or for heart opening?

REY BRANNEN 2:54
both, honestly, I tend to be on the keto diet many people are familiar with, find that that, you know, reduces inflammation in my body. And, you know, for me, it's fascinating, the keto diet, I caught on it less from an ego standpoint of I want to look good, which is, you know, part of the rationale, a lot of times, you know, you can burn a lot of fat, obviously, you get into ketosis, and your body is preferentially burning fat as an energy source.

But I'm very interested in human consciousness. And I realized, Oh, that's interesting. So most of my life, my brain has been running off of, you know, a certain energy source, but you can have these ketone bodies, essentially, giving it a different power source. And I thought, well, that's fascinating, right? Well, what what, what is my consciousness? What will my cognition be like? And, you know, I've found it to be more clear. When I'm in deep ketosis, and I'm on a regimen of doing a lot of cardio, I find that my, there's a certain greater zest for life and a higher desire to learn.

CK LIN 4:14
aliveness

REY BRANNEN 4:15
Yeah, you could say that. Sure. I mean, it's, it's just one of many tools. But so yeah, it tends to be my breakfast, and I don't generally eat anything solid until after the trading day ends. So these days, I tend to do day trading some in front of that large setup you saw, yeah and was very impressive. It's like a lot of monitors. It's like being the matrix.

CK LIN 4:38
Yeah, seven screens or something.

REY BRANNEN 4:40
Yeah. And they're all like 32 inch, they're there. It took a lot of that's that setup is been evolving. Over the last two years, come October, I've been doing this, essentially full time, two years. That's become really lucrative. And it's a, you know, we can talk about this too, if it comes to that.

But I'm also a student of, you know, what you might call abundance mentality. And I think that it's an important thing to understand, both for oneself and for the planet, because, you know, we're taking from, essentially from Mother Earth resources, usually with the idea that, you know, they're scarce. And if I have some of it, you can't have some of it. But, you know, these days ideas are capital too. And so, yeah, that's just another passion of mine we can get into but

CK LIN 5:35
So, while we're in our topic, why don't we just jump straight in? Sure. So one thing that you said to me before we started recording was we're all one together, and then we're here, you know, this separation is, is our illusions, right? So speak more about that, and actually tie that into the abundance mentality, if you don't mind?

REY BRANNEN 5:57
Sure. I've never thought of it specifically in way but yeah, you know,

all these, what may seem platitudes to some people, I believe are operationally true, that, you know, all is one. And in the deeper states of access, you know, it's very clear it's, it's a felt sense of unity with all that is, and I, I'm by training I'm, I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I took graduate-level quantum physics and, you know, I, I'd like to look to both the ancient traditions and what I call or what I've heard, referred to as deep structure, like so if you if you were to look at, you know, the saints and sages, let's say, of all the different traditions, ultimately it comes down to that this simple thing that, you know, in Sanskrit, they say,'Tat Tvam Asi', thou art that. And so from the Aldous Huxley wrote a great book, the perennial philosophy, where he basically examined all the major religions, and they boils it down to that he says, the most succinct way of stating, you know, this, this deeper underlying truth is that we're all one. And I think science tells us that in different ways, but many of us don't, many modern humans don't want to, you know, interpreted it as such. But, if you think about the Big Bang, it was a singularity of essentially no dimensions, there was no space-time to speak of, and all it is now me sitting here, you sitting across from me, and the iterative reverse of that, you sitting looking at me where I like to say I am I, you are you we are we infinitely recursive? But yeah,

so, this energy g of the Big Bang, essentially, went from a pure singularity, singularity means one, right? They literally said that, the singularity, and it, it expanded, and it it became multiplicity, right. But it was all one energy that became different matter forms. And so, you know, what is the koan, "what is your face before you were born?" You know, we think of ourselves as having a specific origin into life as having been born as a baby, but like, you know, you can, you can trace your origin back to the stars, right? Like there's, in your right leg there, there's elements that were formed and the depth cries of a of a supernova, versus the only way that these heavy elements get made. And then your other like, there may be from a different star. So, you know, there is that sense to which you have origin that goes beyond your birth, it goes to the stars. So this again, a lot of people will think of it as a platitude or a cliche to say, you know, your child is with the stars, but it's it's very figuratively,

CK LIN 9:13
it's scientifically accurate.

REY BRANNEN 9:15
Yes. Yeah. I'm so fascinated by it, by mean, like, the elements that form us were, they essentially bounced off the core of a neutron star, it was like, you know, gravity, when a star go supernova, the the the gravity brings this, these elements in, it smashes them down, and then it they explode offers, right? So there's, there's a sense to which I've bounced off a neutron star, you know, I mean, I, I'm not saying this in an ego way, but it's like, that's what we are, and be before that the Big Bang, and who knows what before, but literally, all that we are, is something that came from, quote-unquote, nothing. And so this is then how I would tie that into abundance is that, you know, so much of our call it scientific materialism presupposes this idea that there's only so much matter to grow around, there's only so much resources. And yet, all that is all that we see all this manifest existence is an outgrowth of what essentially was by a scientific way of looking at it nothing. So, yeah, I just think humanity in general, we need to wake up to this infinite creative potential that, as far as we know, we, as humans, are the leading edge of that. Evolution. And so, you know, I think we need to take responsibility for who we are as that leading edge of evolution and make less excuses in our own lives. And then, you know, try to be, you know, greater servants of this amazing process that's unfolding with me through us.

CK LIN 11:02
How do you operationalize that idea? implements that into your, your reality or your relationship, let's say, with your wife for the professional endeavors that you do, because part of the intention of this podcast is not just is my intention anyway, we don't just want to talk about intellectual ideas, but I also want to hear how people actually implement their core values into their daily lives. You know, how do we actually connect the esoteric ensure our day to day for the materialist listening to this is like, this is whatever, yeah, woowoo, I don't understand is day to day. And for the people who are really into spirituality, like I am, is saying, like, yeah, this is awesome, I'm at, I want to actually create that bridge between the two worlds you speak right? So.

REY BRANNEN 11:55
So I would say that this is similar to that phrase, chop wood carry water, right? So we can all go into the philosophical. And the higher realms, shall we say, and you can get lost there, you can be underground. However, as I said, we're supposed to be you know, call it vehicles of, of, you know, source or whatever you want to call it, right? There's, there's 1000 names for this. But in order to do that, it's actually done in the real world. So, you know, for myself, I believe in this idea of transmission, as we talked about earlier, right. And this goes to the kind of things that like Gandhi said, you know, Be the change you want to see in the world. So, in my current way of looking at, you know, reality, this is just my way of seeing it now, with humans emanate essentially, energy at a level that most people don't see, right. But there are ways in which it's proven scientifically that your your heart creates a strong magnetic field, something on the order of 5000 times greater than your brain. And there is energy and information actually carried on this. And so for example, right now, let's say you and I sitting here, there's a way in which I hope that through my being through the things I've done in life in the in the the intent I share, some of my heart field goes out to you. And, you know, gives this unspoken gift of whatever it is, I've endeavored to learn, right, so there's a way in which, literally, just by being in a room with other people, and through the way you speak, and through your actions, and just literally your very core being, you're able to share this kind of consciousness. So that's one way it's, it's literally the To me, it's the beginning way you have to, well, with respect to abundance, for example, and this is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but you, you have to take care of the self first. You actually have to take care of your own physical body so that when you're in vibrant health, and you actually have, you know, all your, let's say, your bills taken care of, and all these things that could pose as distractions. You know, it's biblical and say, in the sense of when you say, you know, make your cup runneth over. So when your cup runneth over, all that's left is to give, right?

And so yeah, for myself, I would say that one way in which some of this translates into into daily life, and let's talk about the abundance way of looking at this is that, you know, going on, I guess, now 12 years ago, for example, I first watched the movie, The Secret. And there were a lot of things that just seems so far out in that. But there were they also sort of rang true at some level in my soul. And I was going through a hard time in my life at that point, I had, as you may know, I had I had a business that was good, but you know, most of the value was in the business at that point, we were we were paying ourselves salaries. This was a, a thing for men to do better with women, we had the times largest website in the world on that and, but there was some part of it that had become a little bit empty, and I didn't know what and,

and I also had gone to try to do day trading. And I started in September of 2008, which I think we can safely say in the modern era was the worst possible time to start doing day trading. And I subsequently blew up and pretty much lost all my money. And I knew I had to go back into industry and I was looking for a job and long story short, I watched the movie The secret for 30 days in a row like as a lullaby. Like just it was it's very To me, it's very peaceful. Alright, that's a lot of nice music, a lot of feel good, like the transmission. Yeah, I got a good transmission from it. And that led to some extremely synchronous events where and I met my life partner rain, and but I stopped doing the day training because I blew up and I went back into working in nanotechnology. I was repairing transmission electron microscopes. And that was beautiful. I mean, I really, there's a book that I could show you, it's all about transmission electron microscopy, actually, you can look back, see that there's that blue book there. Off to your right there. On the other shelf, ran down a little bit. Yeah. And actually, the notebook above that is my quantum mechanics notebook. So these things are I really enjoy it as a geek, like I can get into this stuff. And I love you know, the mathematics of it. But I'm getting far afield.

But what I wanted to say with respect to this is that all these things I learned about abundance and actually wind up writing my own book on it, I am not currently in the midst of selling it or anything, but I called it the seven laws of abundance. That's it, that was not actually doesn't physical form. I'll show it to you later. I have a printout of it. But through the things I learned in that, about two years ago, I decided to try my hand at like full time stock trading again. And it wasn't that I had better technical knowledge, because you need to know technicals and fundamentals to trade stocks. But it, a lot of it was this abundance mentality applied to stock trading. So for example, one of my laws is simply that ripples create waves, it's this idea of compounding gains. And I basically traded stocks with the idea of just simply trying to apply that compound, right little gains adding up instead of in the past, I was always shooting for this big gain, right, the home run that was going to like, you know, make my day 10 x 10 x again. And over time, you know, I started with a small account. And I would say now, I think I'm up to 16 x my original capital from two years ago. And you know, if I continue compounding at that rate, it's going to be ridiculous, it gets a little harder, but nonetheless have become extremely proficient stock trader now and it's just simply applying these ideas and understanding at the at the base level, I like to say I want to be in the path of abundance, right? So not only is that self created, right? God helps those who help themselves. But I also essentially tap into the, you know, the the, for lack of a better word, the unseen the flow and imagination, the flow. Yeah. The dao and there are times where things happen. Very synchronicity, I happen to look to this monitor, and I see it little piece of information that it's like it called to me, and then I get in that position. And you know, a lot of profit ensues.

Within financial markets, there's always fluctuations, right? It's the same as right now in the vacuum of space, there's virtual particles appearing and disappearing. Right, there's, there's sources constantly creating, it's constantly having vibrations up and down. And with respect to producing abundance, it's like I just want to be in the right place at the right time, always. So that's a different modality that I had, where I was trying to take something from the market. Instead, I'm like opening myself up to be where the abundance is flowing in each moment.

I formulate this mathematically. As for anyone who's a math geek, like me the limit as delta t approaches zero of delta C over delta T. Delta C is like a change in your consciousness, right? In each and every moment, we can be aware. And as that time interval of awareness goes to zero, the the the way they formulate this in calculus is that the result is infinite. Right? So when you can be present in every moment, you've opened yourself to the infinite. You're taking these time intervals, and just yeah, so I'm going to stop myself there. But I would say, if I'm, if I recall your original question on this, it's like, yeah, I there was a point in my life where I started,

what kind of kicked all love all this off really deeply for me was in November of 2013. I had my first out of body experience. And it radically shifted what I thought was true about reality. What caused it? Well, it was it was deliberate in the sense that well, first I'll go back to my college years, right walked into an old bookstore. And I saw this Llewellyn book on on astral projection. And it shows this woman sitting up out of her body and like a ghostly looking way. And there was something that hit inside that, like, oh, that seems, you know, possible. And I picked I got the book, I read it, I tried it, it was ridiculous. There's all these like rituals, and you had to do it at the at the time of the full moon. And long story short, it never worked. And plus, I was studying electrical engineering, I don't have the time to like, actually try it. So fast forward, something like 15 some years, and I'm at this convention. It's sort of a spiritual thing. And I'm there mainly just to look at the art. And I see, there's a two hour workshop on how to have the outer body experience. And I thought, you know, I've actually never met anyone who, who's had that, you know, never anyone told me I've had out of body experience literally, at least in my adult life. I think I grew up contestant Mexico, by the way. So I do think that I came across some some interesting humans there that may may have done some truth transmission to me. But anyway, I thought, you know what, it's worth 50 bucks to hear another human actually state that they've had an out of body experience or tell you how to do it. So I go to this thing. And I think I had this impression that there would be a woman or a person turned out to be a woman, like someone dressed in flowing robes, or kind of like poofy, who's totally almost business clothing. A woman who worked for the city of Vancouver's an engineer, and Russian woman, rather dry presentation, just very factual on like, here's the techniques you would do to do this. No passion, anything? No, like, you know, nothing. There was a little bit of an upsell to a greater course. But I was like, Wow, she really believes she's had this. And so the end, she opened it up to questions. I'm like, Yeah. Can you tell me about any of your own experiences? Because she didn't, she didn't say any of that, you know. Yeah, she's just talking about how it happens. And suddenly her eyes brightened. And this prior Dr. presentations, she's like, Yeah, she went to all these things. She said, You know, I, I'd always wanted to imagine what it was like to walk on the moon. And one of my experiences, I went to the moon. And I jumped around, and I felt a little gravity. And I felt like the soft sand and like, whatever that is. And I just thought, wow, like, this is genuine emotion. This is like, she should have led with this for me. And she was a good marketer, but like, it was my question that drew out from her, what was in my perception, genuine experience. So it helped me believe a bit more in it. And at the time, I was for whatever reason, waking up at that hour that they call the thin hour, you know, the veil is thinnest, for 4am hour, which I've come to understand that, you know, our bodies naturally produce DMT at that time of night, produces it all the time in very, very low levels. But if there's any time in which it's likely to happen most naturally, it's due to the fact that we're in we're in REM breathing at that time, rapid eye movement Breathing is, is a very specific type of breathing. And the breath capitalizes a an enzyme in our lungs called n methyl transferase which can transfer methyl groups on to trip demean, which comes from our brothers and sisters, the plants. It does it twice, and you have DMT. So you're in a profoundly altered state at that time. The problem is most of us don't remember it. I'm of the opinion now that we all actually have experiences of quote unquote, out-of-body, it's a different kind of consciousness. But they're of a subtle, more refined nature where it, it's often the case that you don't bring that back with you just the same way. We all probably dream every night and forget those dreams. Anyway, long story short, two nights later, I woke up and I kind of tried some of the things she was talking about. And man, even though Yeah, it was like, I had never had a psychedelic experience in my life, I you know, this was shattering, then it's like, basically, my whole energy body woke up, I didn't know what's going on. But it, I sleep with an eye mask on part of my bio hacking and earplugs.

And basically, my whole body filled with energy, you know, it's like that saying, apparently, in the Bible, you know, if I be single, your whole body will be filled with light, or something like that. So it was like I was sensing all of the internals of my body in this like, pink crackling super powerful energy. And I was thinking, Okay, this is different, like something happened here. The technique, by the way, involves imagining that your hand and you stay still through this, but you imagine that your your, your hand is starting to rise out of your hands. So it's almost like a energy body version of your hand is starting to like, gradually come out like this. And after a while, if you feel a sensation that sort of like as if your hand was moving through a gauze or a cat cotton candy, at that moment, then you know, you intensified and you really try to like, get the whole thing out. Anyway, long story short, it was it was an incredibly energetic, powerful experience, I was hearing what sounded like a jet engine going off in my head, it was just this powerful. And I'm basically on the land launch pad. But I don't know what to do. There was a lot of quote unquote, exit techniques that she talked about, and I forgot. And the only thing I remembered was that she had said that the the outer body experience is a thought responsive thing. And so I just yelled, in my mind, I went out. Pop, there was this pop. And the next thing I knew there was this perspective of literally as aware as I am with you right now of looking down from the corner of my bedroom, at which point I proceeded to be essentially, you know, yelling expletives in my head, like, this is a real Wow, this was not this was not BS. This is as real as it gets. And I kind of floated around my apartment. And I'd recall she said, you could go through a wall. So I went through a wall and I, quote, unquote, you know, I'm not dogmatic about what this experiences, but it's an experience just as we're experiencing something right now. I had the experience in that moment of floating, and flying like Superman, around the neighbors apartment. And then I had this moment of guilt, I'm like, it's so real that you simply say, wow, I shouldn't be in someone else's apartment. And I tried to leave and the the the dream construct or whatever that is, started breaking apart. And I was trying to like go through the door in my hand stuck in their door. And then then it became more dreamlike to the point where I basically was panicking to get out and I exploded their doors. And the next day, I had to go and look like is their door ok? It seems weird to say this to now. But that's how real it seemed, I was like, what really happened there. And that kicked off, you know, years and years of just going down the rabbit hole with this stuff. As an aside, I then got on something called a Vancouverfloorplans.com, and I'd never been in their apartment, but the floor plan, everything I saw was exactly as it is. They're different units in this building. And so, you know, it floored me floored me.

CK LIN 28:42
So actually, on that note, I'm doing something totally opposite of what I normally would do. What I normally do is rituals and you know, isolation and books and stay my head as I'm doing this total opposite, which isolation in nature, micro dosing National Parks

REY BRANNEN 29:05
like a vision quest.

CK LIN 29:06
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But my own self created vision quest. So part of my concern was how much since I'm by myself, there's no safety container Guardian, per se. Yeah. So I'm going to start off slow rather than like heroic dose, which is again, normally what I'll do is heroic dose, jump right in, but

REY BRANNEN 29:31
McKenna always said you should just do the hero dose. But I don't know. That's true. Like, you know, I think there's a level at which it's, it's good to let our psyche like, you know, develop I think the dao, right? The dao shows that all things occur of their own nature. And so a flower growing, comes out of the ground, and it takes its time. And it evolves and it evolves. And then gradually the flower opens, you know. And it's true. There's, there's, in, you know, Zen Buddhism, you have satori and kensho these like, sudden awakenings. But those probably were preceded in that way of looking at reality by, you know, our karma and so you don't want to take a flower and be like, like, trying to make it open. So for myself, it's like, that's the thing, there's no, there's no hurry in all of this. It's like, we're already awakened, we just forgot, you know, so there's nothing lacking in the current moment, you know, so however we feel intuitively call to do things. If you want to be a hero and take a hero dose, then that's probably what you need to do. But if you also feel like going gentle into that good night, that's also the right thing. My perspective.

CK LIN 30:47
Yeah, for sure. I think the egoic mind at least for me, as an engineer, I want the most effective and most efficient, the most accelerated as a way to path to get the results, you know, so then I'll my ego, your ego, and Mike would say, yeah, you know, one gram is awesome. But I want to go faster, let's go two, I want to go fast. I want to go fast on let's go five, I want to go fast, let's go 10. And I think part of it is also to tamper with that, you know, just allow the natural process the progression to grow. Its natural way without judgment. And without trying to, you know, hurry up, let's go faster. So I think that ties in also nicely as at least for me, the conversation about abundance too. Because part of it, you know, there's my egoic mind is saying like, but my friend who was 27 he's achieved in the billion dollar status, this and that. And in the back comparison game. Yeah. And it's a no win situation. Because I'm not him. He's not me, and then I have my life to live in that. But it's, it's a constant balance for me.

REY BRANNEN 31:55
I'll give you a quick realization that made me just like, drop all that was, I call it zero one moment, mathematically, right? The difference between zero and one is infinite. So I went through a lot of my life doing that same thing where I'd be like, cat man, like Bill Gates, it's like, there's no way I would ever catch up to someone like that, you know, like, it's how do you even, you know, compare yourself. And then there were times too, because I'm into, you know, astronomy and like, study the universe. Our scale is so puny, right? What am I compared to all of this, but the moment that you then deepen into the understanding that you're in, and it's you. All that drops away, like, their successes are your success, right? So just be yourself. That is, it also simplifies purpose for me, right? Like, it's, it's, for me purposes, like, yes, you can have a high purpose. But ultimately, the simplicity of it all is that your whole life is is technically perfect. It is an expression of the all. And so be the best you can be that sounds cliche, but like, man, it it. It actually had an effect on my abundance, because I no longer was viewing from scarcity, the moment you view others, right? There is scarcity, because it's not you. I love the Upanishad, they say "wherever there's other, there's fear". And one of my laws of abundance is to get away from fear. And doubt, these two things cloud, like our ability to create these kind of things in the moment. Anyway,

CK LIN 33:29
thank you for that.

REY BRANNEN 33:30
You're it, man, you always were. You just forgot. I'm it. I always was. I just forgot. Yeah.

CK LIN 33:38
So that's actually another thing that's that I love about the book. So even with all of the spiritual readings about, you know, how we're all one, from a scientific understanding of it from spirituality, understanding of it from the place of, hey, everything. We have a little bit of all ancestors within us. Yes, just by the pure scientific calculation of the oxygen molecules coming in and out. So we have a little bit of Genghis Khan , we have a little bit of Confucius, Martin Luther King, even Jesus Christ. Right. So having these mental models, allows me to keep that in mind that we're all one, that we are a collective whole, that this is this collective organism called the earth ecosystem, is it? So that actually helps me think about this without thinking how Rey and I were separate human beings were different individuals, his his own thing, and I'm on my own thing. So that helps me kind of think about all this. So going back to what you were sharing earlier? How do you concretize and the abundance mindset around because you talk about, increasing awareness, right, as a way to tap into flow? How do you actually do that concretely, this may or may not be relevant to the hyper visualization that you talked about?

REY BRANNEN 35:14
Well, let's start there. And I would say this is, you know, not necessarily the easiest practice. But I think, you know, there is effort involved, right. So with respect to what we were talking about, with the out of body experience, what was profound about that, is that basically, you can call the out of body experience like a little bit more vivid version of lucid dreaming. And lucid dreaming is fascinating, because humans have been doing it. For thousands of years, Aristotle had a saying that, you know, when one dreams one sometimes knows, one is dreaming. So, you know, as far back as one of our great ancient philosophers of Greece, you know, there's these accounts of being aware in the dream state. And yet, in the modern era, like in the 1900s, people were saying that it wasn't real psychologists are saying that people were backwards, rationalizing. And then I think like 1967, Stephen LaBerge proved scientifically that lucid dreaming is the thing. He did this through eye movements that were like signaling, you can control your eyes in the dream state. But he was hooked up to instruments that recorded that he's clearly in a sleep state through the rapid eye movement and other factors, and the brainwaves, and yet, he was controlling his eyes in a very specific way. It was almost like Morse code from the dream. So I just wanted to say that because it's important, I think for people who might be purely scientific materialist listening that to understand that, you know, there's there's ways in which science can actually help us prove these things that for thousands of years might have seemed like total, woowoo, to a lot of people. Anyway, I came out of this, and I thought, Wow, that is profound, because out of body experience, that deep lucid dream actually feels more real than real. Okay. And that is a profound thing to think. So one of the things I learned is that in lucid dream you can, there's all these skills you can practice. And one of them was to actually meditate in the dream state. Now, prior to this, I wasn't a person who really did meditation. In college, I had been turned on to the silver mind control method, and I did a little bit of that. But I never got into any deep meditative states and read any kind of non duality. I tried a few meditations. But the Tibetan dream Yogi's say that a practice done in the dream state is nine times more powerful than that done in the waking. And since you and I were just talking about hacking and getting there the fastest, this is a natural way to get to, you know, that unity consciousness without any kind of like, intermediate substance. So I learned from this guy, Jurgen ZV, some of his books are on my shelf, to say the word 'om' in the dream state. So you know, this presupposes that someone listening would try to have a lucid dream.

And I can say really quickly that the way to do that, the easiest way, the most powerful ways to do something called "wake back to bed". And there's the acronym WBTB, I guess, look it up, wake back to bed. And it increases the chances of having a lucid dream over normal chance by 20 times. And this is just been scientifically proven, again, by Stephen LaBerge, who's a Stanford PhD. And so yeah, so now let's presuppose you've done your work, you wake up in the middle night 4am you stay up for 30 minutes you set strong intention to be aware in your dream state. And then you go back to sleep and knew something that's odd about the dream and you suddenly go Wait, okay, this is a dream. And then as I say, it's Game on. Because at that moment, you can it's like you take control of the reality that you're in. Right? I think of it as like a holodeck for the for the way real life is it just seems that there's a greater time delay between our our thoughts and our intentions in in waking life and then there is in the dream state so in the dream state you can literally like create stuff I one of my big hacks for for biohacking as a man is is using pine pollen tincture which was discovered by this guy Stephen Harrod Buhner as a as a not discovered but he basically popularized it as a way to give men a you know, a sort of bio identical phyto-testosterone and so in my dream state i manifested a bottle of that I and so just popped on the table and I took some of the picture and the next day I added 20 pounds to my squat so there's a kind of hack right on the on the physical level

but the dream state can be used for spiritual advancement and this is what the Tibetan dream Yogi's figured out. You can even go so far as to become enlightened one of the I believe the Karmapa has achieved his enlightenment through the dream state. So what happened? I he said to say 'om', I you know, it wasn't someone who spent a lot of time saying Oh, and I tried it before and what happens right, let's say all right now 'om', good. What happened? Not a lot, we feel good. Well, in this particular lucid dream, I flew around and I sat on some lava rocks and I got into lotus position and I just sit 'om' and the own without the intention of it became hyper resonant, it became extremely powerful to where it was vibrating the substrate of the dream. So the rocks the irridescent beautiful rocks, I mean, I just remember it like it was yesterday because again, it's more real than real. it's it's indescribable beauty, but they and the water and then my whole being started vibrating with this 'om'. And then that 'om' vibrated the the visual existence of that entirely away there was nothing but this 'om' and then it went into this fractal Mandela realm where I was just seeing like hyper geometry. So you know, event, entering deeper into the, you know, the divine imagination, and then even all that fell away. And there was only this luminous you know, with with what I think you know, the the, the Tibetans Call the CLEAR light, this primordial substance or this primordial energy or, you know, it defies any kind of logic thing I can tell you right now button. It's, it's, you know, self without an office, its its its consciousness without an object.

CK LIN 42:03
I've been there before. Right. It's impossible to this

REY BRANNEN 42:07
one. Yeah, it's ineffable, but beautiful and life transforming. And this can come from going to a dream state. And essentially, you know, either commanding the cut scaffolding to go away, William Bowman says, you know, use this command, 'higher self now', you just say that in the dream state. And a lot of times just before it just knocks it away. 'om' for whatever reason, every time I've said 'om', like, profound things happen. And don't I don't always go to just pure source, but it always destroys the call it the illusion of the dream itself, which is, in a way what, you know, the spiritual traditions are telling us that, that this reality is it has that illusion, like quality. But yet, at the same time, it's beautiful. And we shouldn't be here, we should want to be here, we should enjoy it, you know. And that's, there's that chop wood carry water thing, right? We're here to bring something back.

So what I realized is that this this skill of visualization, though, is, is is combined with strong feeling, and emotion and intent does seem to manifest things into real life, right. And so, you know, after that I came to do a little bit deeper meditation. In fact, I went crazy. I found this website, advanced yoga practices, AYPsite.org. And all these things that are extremely esoteric in terms of yoga practices. There's one I learned where it's, it's a, it was a movie that was kept secret. And it's basically you take your tongue and you stick it up your nasal passage, like from behind the pharynx and the uvula. You go back up and you like start tickling these sensitive areas. And I don't know, you know, I don't know that science knows what's going on. But this really like deepens meditation. You can go into Samadi directly through that. So there's a Yeah, profound practices. You just, you do some Asana first, you do some pranayama, and then you, you know, you do, like, get into these mudra positions. And that's one of the ways in which, you know, I got into deep meditative states before I even you know, could crawl Yeah, just having had a I think it's, it's useful to have some kind of profound altered state to know what's possible. A lot of people and as a benchmark,

you know, stealing fire, great book, right, they talk about the ways in which you can get to that call it goal, but there's actually, you know, I think they give a mathematical equation to kind of show that, you know, let's say one spent 30 years in meditation, this is absolutely the safest way to go. But it's not necessarily going to produce the result that could take 30 years for some people, other people, whatever, it could be the first time they sit down on the mat. You know, and on the high end, I've never experienced this, but I've read books about, you know, people doing 5-MEO DMT, for example, and that just obliterates your ego, you're one with God. You know, in most instances, some people use the ego to fight that. But on the other hand, there is the potential that your heart will stop during that. Yeah. So that's like, you can go instantly with risk, and, you know, or, and so there's all these intermediate states ways to get to the, what they call like, esctasis, you know. And so I think it's, it's a different journey for every person.

But yeah, with respect to, you know, going into your meditation, then however deeply you can get to visualize, right, and it's, it's a skill. So imagine, you know, your ideal future in a relaxed state, right, like, so I'm sitting here in the same position. If I close my eyes, and just center and breath, and then it's okay to be a little selfish, trying to like, go ahead and visualize your, your ideal life, whatever that is for you. Does that mean a lot of money? Fine. no judgment, right. Like you're here to be a creator on this earth. Ideally, I think that, you know, at the end of the day, it's about how can you serve? So once you get that money, you know, what are you gonna do with it? Right, I'm gonna take it with you. So like, get as much money as you want. And then like, give it all away. So yeah, you also asked me, I think, like, how to get into flow, or what were some of the other things we were trying to discuss. I can totally ramble as you as you can see here.

CK LIN 46:35
No, it was perfect. It was great. We talked about increasing consciousness and then we got into the dream state. Then then that was that actually one of the beautiful things I few takeaway from this conversation? Actually, I'm blessed with the ability to lucid dream at will. But I didn't know what to do with that.

REY BRANNEN 46:59
Maybe that's why we're here right?

CK LIN 47:02
In this conversation now like oh, yeah, I could actually use the dream state the lucid dream state as a way to kind of like the the matrix the dojo to practice hyperactively to visualize the reality that I want to create for myself for others, you know, to deepen my personal practice, whether it be spiritual practice or whether it be certain skill set that I want boxing as an example, there's something

REY BRANNEN 47:31
so good at boxing through lucid dreaming so

CK LIN 47:33
good. Yeah. So thank you for that. Sure. The open my door for how I can use this superpower

REY BRANNEN 47:41
Yeah, you literally have a superpower in that, you know, I mean, it takes most people conscious effort to lucid dream. A lot of my lucid dreaming has been cut off in the last two years, because the prime time dream time occurs at the last two hours of your sleep cycle. And I get up for six to trade the markets. But yeah, you you've got, man, like, if we weren't one, I would be quote unquote, jealous of your literally. But please feel free to draw on me as a resource I was one of the things I used to do. I was I used to teach live workshops on how to have the auto body experience. After she did that, I was like, this is a gift that I can give to the world. You know, I know a lot about it, I actually run a Facebook group called Astro projectors. And we've got something like 2000 plus people, and some of the amazing top authors are in there on that. And yeah, it's it's just a beautiful gift.

CK LIN 48:37
So actually, on that note, because I know that you have changed careers multiple times. You were at one point, a pickup artist, and you share education content around that. And then now you are a day trader, and now you also run and men's group, you also, you know, participate. Anyways, your many years are a resource of many, many things. So in that question, how did you pick trading is your Dharma or your path?

REY BRANNEN 49:11
You know, I will say that I didn't pick it, it picked me. You know, I really would like to emphasize to people that once you're sort of in that abundance mentality, don't try to force the way that it's going to come to you. Right, So, in brief, when I married my wife, the one thing she her parents didn't like, because they're Asian, I'm white, was that I didn't own real estate. And so we got into, I learned all about investing in commercial real estate, blah, blah, blah, they were on the other hand, skeptic of investing in stocks, because they're not a real thing. And so her essential, you know, view of the world was that it's dangerous. Maybe she had people who blew up in stocks, I don't know. But like, to honor sort of those wishes, I focused on that and stayed away from day trading. Long story short, there came a point about two and a half years ago, where her brother was separating from his partner, and there was like, a lot of financial concern around that. And I just said to her, you know, what, babe like, let me let me trade stocks, you know, I'd said to you before, I wouldn't, but let me do it. This is something I feel like, can, can work. And so it wasn't any kind of like, Oh, I, you know, I want to be a day trader, I was just like, in that moment, there was need. And I tried it, and things went well. And then they went better. And then they went even better. And I made a believer out of her pretty quickly. And then I literally thought to myself, you know, this is a great way to prove what I've written in my book, and just like, you know, take some of the talents I have already and see how they are magnified by this kind of abundance thinking. And on the face of it, it doesn't seem very, you know, spiritual or whatever. But I sit there at times, Well, I mean, a lot of people would say that, you know, spiritual is sitting in a meditation closet, or going out and feeding the homeless or whatever. But like, I get into flow states by trading. You know, some of the triggers, you've probably talked to people about the triggers of flow, but you know, one of them are high stakes, so I'm trading my own money. And they're, they're real time feedback. And so, I do something, I see how it works. I maneuver and I compensate in real time. And so yeah, I would just say that, you know, when you're when you're looking for, for purpose, and and and for, you know, a way to quote unquote, make abundance, be open to what your your innate skills are, and then just synchronicity, so I would say, in this case, the synchronicity that allowed this was need, you know, we were in a situation where or her brother was, you know, likely going to have to pay hundreds of thousands in divorce stuff, and he actually did. And, you know, my wife was concerned about money at that time, and I felt we had no need, I mean, I grew up in the ghetto, Tucson, New Mexico brother and I got where we are. Now, as you look out around us, right? Like, this is the main my version of Paradise like I'm, we could go higher, but I don't care like this is the contrast between when I was young living in a government subsidized housing ghetto. But yeah, I just, I just went with the flow brother, like, I saw it was working. And I continue to do that. And it's been the most financially lucrative I've ever done in my life. By far, even owning and selling a business. And the freedom is uneclipsed by anything. When I had a business, I had a business partner. But even if I own my own business, you have customers in day trading. within about two minutes, I can go to all cash. And I could go live the rest of my life, and you know, Thailand right now and live off the interest of what I've got, you know, I do it, because it is my way of generating abundance. And I'm, I've been, you know, better able to give back financially to my loved ones and people I see on the street, and you know, the charities that we give to the game, and this money thing, it's... I view money, by the way is it is a neuro transmitter of humanity.

CK LIN 53:46
Interesting. Yeah.

REY BRANNEN 53:47
It's an enabler. And so wherever the intent behind it is, is what it's going to do. And that can be good or bad. But you know, from the non dual perspective, I just I don't, I don't view things like it has to be this way. It has to be that way. Go with the flow. Yeah.

CK LIN 54:05
So little recap. So what I hear is you follow the flow, he was effortless for you, you saw immediate return right away. And you also follow your internal state, you got into flow states doing that, yes. To these two things, were a good benchmark for you to say, Hey, this is something that I want to continue doing. I enjoyed it. I'm good at it. And I'm going to continue to do it.

REY BRANNEN 54:34
Simple. Yes.

CK LIN 54:35
Yeah, thank you. That's beautiful. I think for a lot of people who are looking at the questions of purpose, and also find your mission, that enable them to continue to serve the purpose. I think that's the maybe struggles is the word, maybe grappling is the word, you know, they're the logical side of thinking, well, there's a learning curve, i am in the struggle as a way to get over the hump. Now, one day, someday may become effortless, but maybe this is just part of life, the struggle is real. And I'm going to continue to do that. Versus the spiritual side of you may say, hey, let me follow flow. Let me just surrender and see what comes through me. And I think the, the duality of it is the grapple. Right? I think what you've demonstrated here is you just trusted, there's a need. Let me throw something at the wall. And hey, there's positive feedback. I also enjoyed it, I'm just going to follow this path versus trying to struggle and find something logically and do a reductive type of approach. Right?

REY BRANNEN 55:50
Yes. And, you know, as you were speaking of that, I realized one component that I would also add, and that was true for me, and I didn't think about it as much when I was describing this, but a lot of times, your greatest motivation can come from wanting to help others. And in this case, the financial thing was simply I love my wife, I love my brother in law, and I want to help them. And when, when, when you come from a position of love and a desire to help others, that's when call it you know, the universe source whatever rewards, right? You know,

how do you get rich, figuring out how to help the most people, you know, so find whatever gifts you have, and don't be judgmental as to like, how it manifests as to how to give because,

I mean, again, sometimes I tried to disclaim this, because I know some people don't resonate with it, the cliche is, but there's a truth to the fact that you're perfect as you are. And your path is your path. And and, you know, it does not have to be in any way, prescribed, you know, and, in fact, most of us actually likes surprises, right? Who doesn't like a surprise, like a nice surprise, right? Nice.

CK LIN 57:11
a bad surprise, you don't like?

REY BRANNEN 57:13
Well, yeah, you know, but you can also learn to turn those into good surprises, right? Like I one of my one of my laws of abundance is channeling the negative to the positive, what we call negative is just a different form of energy. Right? So if you take a certain negative, you, as a creator have the ability to channel that energy just like that the two terminals of a battery, right? And then until they're connected, there is no flow. Right? So again, from the non dual perspective, what is negative? Well, it's actually just part of the whole dance. But yeah, you know, basically, that that's a big component is, literally, we're all one and we're all here to you know, in my guess, evolve, and I say, would share this, consider your own meta purpose. All right. And this this, for me, it, it took so much of the pressure off to think this way, but it's that my purpose is simple, like the base purpose is "be myself express myself." And then the purpose of my being here in this call it incarnation, whatever you want to call it is to, "to learn to love, and be loved." Right. And there'll be different ways that happens throughout our life. But as long as that's continually happening, I'm on purpose. And it's so easy, actually, right? Like, I see someone on the street, I love that person. I wake up, and my wife's next to me, I love her. I allow myself to be loved by her. And I try to deepen into that every day. And that's not the thing that some of the greatest pleasures and and and the greatest human experiences are democratic. You don't need to be a CEO making, you know, a million a year to have it. These things are the they're the stuff of being human. Right. the juice, yeah. You know, and so once you focus on those, as the core purpose,

then you have, I like to talk about feed forward loops and feed backward loops. Okay. So if you know you're accomplishing your purpose there, then positivity is engendered, right. So as I am being more loving as I am being loved as I am just being myself, that sense of accomplishment, then translates into the other things that I want to do called the higher purposes. I'll elucidate my higher purpose is for you, but I don't I don't smack myself around. If I'm not doing those in like a grand gesture every day, my my two meta purposes, my larger purposes to help humanity move away from the ingrained scarcity thinking that is even literally into it's part of our nervous system, right? There's the amygdala and all these things that sort of cause fear and doubt, or can cause them, and to help them move towards the abundance mentality, right. So that's why I was in the process of writing this book. That's why I've done all this reading on it.

The other is to be a bridge for light to help kind of bring together this gap that I see in the way humanity perceives reality through on the one hand science and the on the other spirituality, whereas they're largely in my view, two poles of the same thing, or, as Joe dispensa likes to say, you know, "sciences is the contemporary language of mysticism." So those are my two greater purposes. And I do work through them, like I was in a documentary recently, and we're doing this interview, there's small way in which you can work at your purpose. And then as long as your intent is strong, the ripple effect can be very great. That Marianne Williamson quote that, you know, like a good, exactly right. But, you know, a small group of people is often the greatest way that humanity changes.

CK LIN 1:01:19
Thank you for that. I think the challenge here, I mean, that challenge is not the right word. unpack that a little bit. The the challenging actually living that, because in saying that, that that's truism? Just be yourself. Right, right. Just love and be loved. Yeah. Agree 100%. The challenge in living that embodying that in a day to day is the interference that comes in a way the mental chatter is that one wish I say to Rey, such that you will like me a little bit more, or how do I know you? The egoic mind, right? The intrinsic desire to be liked to be accepted. And also, it's easy to love someone when they're lovable when they're loving towards you. But the day to day challenges, when when that person's egoic mind show up, you know, they're a little bit more irritable, they're, they're not being their best self. They're tired, they're hungry, be hangry with you. Yeah. Where you're like, I didn't do anything. Why do I deserve this? And in those moments in those micro moments, is where in my mind, where, how the opportunity to actually be loving when the other person is not being lovable. It's easy to love puppies and babies, because they don't have anything, you know, yeah, ill will towards you. But it's much more challenging in a day to day. Does that make sense?

REY BRANNEN 1:02:58
It does. But then I welcome that, as I hear you say that I'm like, bring that bring that bring that. That's where the work is. That's you. So one of the things that I would say, you know, for those who are now let's say, on the other end, things are all about the spiritually like, you know, I wish I can go on a three year dream retreat, or I could go to the Himalayas and sitting in a cave. The facts of modern life are that are Sādhanā, our work is here in this moment. It is those struggles, it is how do I bring consciousness and love to the onslaught of duality, right?

My partner wakes up and in my case, you know, my wife will have dreams, where I did bad stuff in the dream. I have no have the thing where I tell her like, I'm sorry for the stuff I did. My dream self did last night. Because she's very emotional. She is Shakti she's like, you know, she takes us stuff kind of seriously. And then we have a fun talk about it. And that's that.

relationship is the it's the work. Welcome that what when someone's like, on your case, like, that's, that's when your ego gets challenged. without some kind of medicine, whatever. It's like, you know, you know, there's this book here, the way of the conscious warrior, it's not out yet, but PT missile burger, I've learned a lot from him. I'm part of this men's organization called the samurai brotherhood.

And you know, one of the things we have is lean forward into the fires of life. Lean forward into the fires of life. So with that base operating system of like, wanting to learn to love and be loved, it's not saying like, look for the easy way. You know, love, there's times for you to deepen into it, that's going to take what feels like sacrifice and feels like, this is the opposite of love. You know? I don't know if that makes sense. But I feel that very strongly brothers like to be able to dance in duality is what we're all here for. Right? We have to, like, deal with these, these these things that, that rip our soul apart at times, you know? But with that comes the knowledge that we're more than just this, you know, beautiful flesh body that we have.

We have beingness that is beyond that. And I yeah, I would just say that for myself. I've come to treasure those moments. Not fun in the moment. But realize that that's the doing the work, you being in the trenches of your everyday life having a like, domestic first world person problem. If you if you frame it, right, that is the work. That's where you can do your deepest spiritual work. Don't hide in a cave. And in you know, I mean, if that's your Dharma, Sure, go ahead. But if you want to advance in this life, do it in each and every moment, this goes back to that equation, I was saying, right.

It's how can you take each chunk of time break it down smaller and smaller to where your awareness of who you are and what your mission is, is on point that that presence in each infinitesimally small bit of time. And we forget ourselves from moment to moment, right? When I talked about this idea of like, remembering that we're awake, I think that, you know, as an individual being, we're all waking up at the same time, in different stages. And to us, Rom Das's quote, which I love is that we're all walking each other home. And so as you sit there across from the person who's kind of giving you the grief, that person is your teacher. In that moment, they're your greatest teacher, when they're triggering you. Bless them. That's awesome. Thank you for triggering me. Thank you.

CK LIN 1:06:57
Do you use that as a mantra as a way to remind yourself

REY BRANNEN 1:07:01
I don't think that I formalize it as a mantra, but for sure, it's definitely part of my, my, you know, mental model now, is that, you know, my greatest teachers are those who are able to get me and my ego the most, right. My brother in law, we're part of the thing we're doing this ninja training and it was like Fight Club, we went out on Wednesday night. And we're basically sparring in the dark. physical sparring, like you know, punching, kicking. In a circle, there's a circle of men watching, it's a little like Fight Club, except not where you're trying to beat the other guy out. But, uh,

CK LIN 1:07:37
what is the intent there?

REY BRANNEN 1:07:40
You know, I, for one, it's that, I believe, right? That you have the sovereign right to protect your body, your body is your, you know, call it your God vehicle. It's, you know, and so, there's this, there's this Eighth Circuit model of consciousness that Leary and others developed, which I think is really great. But at the, at the base level is, you know, bio survival, right. And you can equate this to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So, when one is trained proficiently in the martial arts, right, we do this quote, unquote, Ninja training, but we're doing mixed martial arts, but we're also doing zen meditation, Taoist meditation, we're doing, you know, all these practices to connect to our energy body, and through the martial arts, there is something to be gained from having a proficiency in knowing that you can defend your physical vehicle for experiencing this reality in any given moment. So I won't go into too deep with that. But just to finish the story, like, he got pretty aggressive, you know, he was triggered. I have a black belt in judo. And he told me later that, like, he was somewhat afraid. And so he kind of went from what we were supposed to be doing, unquote, 10% to like, well over 50%. And I got a finger in the eye the first time and I was like, but then I shook, shook it off. And then later, he actually punched me in the lip. And I don't know if you can see, it's like healing now. But I got a fat lip and everything. And like, I basically lost my shit for a bit. I was like, what the fuck dude. And then I realized, wow I said that before I thought.

I didn't. I wasn't aware in the moment. And later, I had a big hug with me just like melted into love, hugging each other. And I was like, Thank you, brother for that. So that's just one small example. But the more you can bring yourself back to yourself. And ideally, the deeper self, the more progress you're making, right? It's, I think the ego is, it's a great ally. You know, a lot of people try to like, denigrate it, like often

CK LIN 1:09:57
the ego death. the ego must die,

REY BRANNEN 1:10:00
the ego is what allows unity to perceive itself as multiplicity, it's part of the thing that that source wanted to do. So value it, but at the same time, most of us are absolutely ignorant of our deeper self. So we should be doing the work to find that but it's always a dance, I find myself going into you know, states of higher consciousness and I'm like, I'm loving it. Like there's the music, cosmic light show, there's, you know, concepts that I think, you know, only exist in that realm that we can bring back here. And then I actually in some ways, like tire of it, tire of what of being in that state, is super consciousness

because you're supposed to chop wood carry water supposed to go there. Bring back the messages of love of unity of of, or even the great scientific inventions. I mean, I see things that are brother that like, I don't know how to bring back, right? I'm just like, oh, that's how black holes work. Again, it, I get it. And then I come back. I'm like, I don't get it. I don't have the mathematical skills yet developed to like, bring back what I saw. So yeah, there's there's that chop wood carry water thing there.

CK LIN 1:11:13
Thank you for that.

REY BRANNEN 1:11:14
Oh, and to save, by the way, is it? You know, in some of my deepest states, I'm like, I'm seeing infinite infinity is right, it just goes on and on. There's no end. But it's so almost overwhelming, right. And then in those moments, that's where I really got the download that presence and love, like, all I wanted, when I had the whole universe. All right, infinite possibilities open to me. There came a moment when all I wanted to do is come back to look in my my wife's eyes, and just be present with her. And, and this is the message I'd like to impart because I feel that is one of like, the deep downloads I got was when you as source consciousness, right, your deeper self is able to experience all infinite possibilities. Then how special does that make when you choose this one right now? Right, you and I sitting across from each other right now is chosen by us and not have all possible infinities. That makes it truly precious, huh. And so every precious moment that you have is like, mathematically amazingly precious because you chose it. I don't know if that landed, but that that to me was so deep. I like that's how I understood presence was like, yeah, you could be doing anything. You chose this right now. So much love in that.

CK LIN 1:12:44
Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you choosing this woman to share it with with me with us.

REY BRANNEN 1:12:49
It's been beautiful man. Yeah.

CK LIN 1:12:54
So my teacher Satyen Raja Ah, yes. One of the brothers, the spirit teachers in the British Columbia area.

REY BRANNEN 1:13:03
Beautiful. I know so much about him, but I've never met him. And I think as a result of what you told me this morning, I have

CK LIN 1:13:08
to definitely meet him. Check him out. He's He's the real deal. Yes, yeah. Just like you. So he emphasizes again, over and over in our training that are your deepest wounds are the source of your greatest gift. And the underlying caveat is that you do you don't get that automatically. You get the gift after you integrate the whole thing after you integrate the polarities. So my my, my point of emphasizing on the challenge, because that is the work, because oftentimes you hear everyone say, yeah, just love in the biblical sense in the, you know, theologians and, or in the cliche sense. But I think the difficulty lies in that there's space between stimulus and response. Right. Because you can choose out of the infinite number of choices, you get angry, you can get resentful, you can get jealous, you can do this, this and that. Or, and or you can, as you said, as a way to train yourself, be more loving, embrace the opportunity, step into that fire and be more generous, because it requires zero effort to do the resentment angry, you know, withhold and whatever, right? It requires zero effort. At least for me I can't speak for others. but it requires a little bit more awareness. A little bit more effort to like, oh, out of this infinite number of choices that I have, let me be more generous. Let me be more forgiving. Let me be more present, and treasure this moment? Because it is true in this infinite number of choices that I have? How do I, if I look at it, in the material sense maximize the opportunity of this moment?

REY BRANNEN 1:15:09
Yeah, right. Well, I'll riff on that a bit. Because, you know, in the term of maximization, think of it. We all make thousands and thousands and thousands of reactions and decisions a day. And

if you optimize each of those, let's just talk on a theoretical level, like if you made the best decision right now, right? The best decision for you was to drink that warm water does you just did, maybe there was a better one. And if it had you done that, then you followed that by the optimal decision and followed that by the optimal decision. It leads to massive compounding, right. So this is what I was talking about that delta t delta means change in time, right? The smaller you can make the interval in which you make decisions, and these can be like, decisions of being have how you are. But they can also be very concrete things, someone calls you, you know, someone cuts you off in traffic, whatever you have that if you're aware, you have the decision to you know, not retaliate, which could could land you in trouble, for example, or you have the decision to just, you know, breathe through it and say, Thank you, teacher, and move on. So, yeah, bringing that awareness to all of your decisions, right? This is where we become incredible creators of our reality, right? When we're present to the moment, the moment is always the moment, right? The moment is always right. It may not feel right, from how you thought you wanted things to be. But it's the moment so deal with the moment as it is. And again, as I say, you know, lean forward into those things that appear as fire, right. One of the lucid dreaming practices is actually to manifest fire and then walk into it kind of a shit. I totally like, try that tonight, you know, or to manifest an alligator and jump in. So basically, you might be familiar with demonic dissolution this idea like a lot of times people who do I Alaska, for example, get eaten by spiders, or you know, just ground up. That's the ego it's like the ego needs a visceral way to experience itself is getting kind of thrashed around. I haven't thought about experience once where I got sucked into I guess what I in retrospect, I had to view is the the black hole at the center of the Milky Way It happened on the solstice where the full moon was in Sagittarius, which is my birth sign. And I didn't realize this until later. But you know, I got like, I basically felt my body yanked out of my body stretched infinitely large and then shot out at the speed of light into a violet colored black hole. And man, I had to just surrender in that moment, I was scared off. This is not where I want to be like, this is horrible and to feel essentially the the crushingness of gravity obliterate the, you know, sense of a body was kind of rough. But I'm still here with you now, you know. So whether it be in a altered state of consciousness, or just in day-to-day life, the ego is kind of like a an onion. And we peel away layers. And we do that through challenge. You know, we just refer people to you know, the works of Grgich, which is where, let's say it this way that that the universe will bring you challenges if you're not seeking them yourself. So better to be proactive, like I go to the gym, I work out till I'm sore, you know, I go into the forest and fight a circle of guys. I'm like saying, Hey, you know what, let me bring it to myself.

it's worse when you don't when you don't go for it. And you just sit there passively. Life is going to bring you some challenges. I saw this in the case of my brother in law, he had written a post on Facebook, where he's like, I'm in the in the apartment I wanted to be in I'm living in the area I wanted to live in, I'm with the partner I want to be with. I'm making the kind of money I wanted to I'm driving the car I wanted to this we're all sort of like, you know, average kind of like this is the goal. His life was idellic man. He'd never had, like, you know, a physical fight he'd never like, wanted for money, like, everything was perfect. And I'll tell you what, his ex was like, he likes to describe it as like Gone Girl without them the murder. What finally happened after 10 years of being with her life, gobsmacked him. And he's much more powerful, much more creative human being now having been through that trauma. But it's all like the hero's journey brother, right?

Like when we're in duality, duality is going to bring duality. It's part of the process. And sure, if you want like go sit in the cave, and you know, you can get out of duality for a while for sure. But for myself, I choose to, to that extent, try to face forward into the fires of life, it's always going to be part and parcel of of this. But when you when you have the right mindset to both somewhat welcome it and transfer it right transform it, as Ken Wilber will say, you know, to take, you know, transcend and include, you're going to have to a lot of people just looking to transcend you know, like,

dude. So like, when I started having those astral projections, I was sitting in my closet doing like two hours of meditation a day at times. And my wife's like, what's going on? You know, like, we gotta we gotta we gotta be in the world. So it helps also to find people to ground you in those cases. But there's always a continuum, I believe, like, you know, don't be a person who's you know, 100% scientific materialist. Like, you know, I'm just here to make money and like, get mine. On the other hand, you know, the just, I'm going to wink out of existence, that's going to happen to death anyway. Get ready. I know

CK LIN 1:21:39
that in the meantime, while you're here, the best of it there enjoy the whole Yeah. So let's do a quick summary. Sure. So for anyone listening, we we cover a lot of ground in this time that we spent together. What's one thing that people can take action about this. If they're inspired by your story, by your mindset, if they're interested, if your intention is to cultivate this abundance mentality, what's one thing that they can take on from hearing your story?

REY BRANNEN 1:22:17
The mental model, first off, just get it in your brain, however you can, that abundance is your birthright. You are a creator from source you are source. So start acting like like I challenge whoever's listening challenge you talked about challenge. That's it, start challenging yourself to be the leading edge of creation that you are, stop playing small. If you're playing small, if you're playing small, and you know it, stop playing small, whatever that means to you. I don't know, right? If it's if it's that you want to be a better singer, and to transmit, you know, higher consciousness to people through your singing step it drop the ego the ego is usually what standing the wave something like that. Get in there, like literally just get in the fight as it were right. Like, I don't know if that's the best word, but just know,

CK LIN 1:23:13
step into the arena.

REY BRANNEN 1:23:14
Yeah. And know and trust that, like, it's all going to be okay. I know there's the positive side of that. So I know you're you're asking for something more concrete. But I think that for me, brother, it takes effort, man, I spent 55 hours base on my stock trading a week. Like, I do the work. A lot of people are afraid to do the work. Like you're a co creator in all of this, right? So want to talk about my book is that like a lot of people in in abundance, they get stuck on that idea of like, you know, the famous phrases get checks in the mail, you know, that can and does happen, right?

But what I like have to say is that abundance is a skill, right? So if you want it to be an engineer, you'd spend four or five years as we did my case, buried in an underground library, literally learning stuff to do the stuff you're supposed to do. You don't just sit there and go. I'm an engineer. I see myself as this amazing engineer. I know mathematics. All right. You know, you go and you actually apply these. call it God given talents that you have. Right and you cultivate them as if they were plants in a garden. Right. And you are the master Alchemist. Right. This is what Wim Hof says, I love this thing. You're the master Alchemist. You literally by your thoughts and feelings create like, you know, these goosebumps that you're seeing on my arms right now. This is from me connecting to who I am, and like actually instantiated into the world, my ability to create a new God and get that at the base level that that's who you are, at essence. You're this leading edge of creation. And if you're not doing it, that's that's where you're off purpose. But it doesn't have to be prescribed by someone else. If your thing is water coloring, if it's if it's Tibetan throat toning, if it's becoming CEO of the next Google, that's you creating in this way. So really identify yourself, I would say this, create a new identity for yourself. If you're playing small, then that's an identity that that you've chosen. More or you could try to like pawn it off and say that it's something outside of you, but No, man, like, you've created everything that's in your life. On some level, it's hard to think right? Because if you've got disease or whatever, but honestly, like, you have to shift your core identity from Oh, poor small Me, too. Wow. I am the leading edge of evolution, wow, am I am I am I honoring this gift?

You know, the Buddhists say that there's no greater gift than to be born into a human body. Right. So through their vision of reincarnation, it's like, you know, you could have been born a dog, you could have been born a slug, you could have been a rock like whatever, that it's only quote unquote, in this human vehicle that we even have the chance to become enlightened. Mm hmm. You know, I'm not sure I buy that per se. But it's a beautiful frame. To think like, you're it as Alan Watts says, You're it? Then what are you doing with that? Right, so so really identify in a different way is and then again, it's like a rock dropping into water, right. And there's that energy of that identification, as something greater than Poor me ego, the suck that all things are happening wrong to me to. Wow, I can ripple out through my every moment conscious decision, you know, so, so bring some meditation into that sit daily in the quietness of trying to figure out who you are, and actively architect the kind of abundance you want in life. Like I like to refer to myself as an abundance architect. I love the little alliteration, but that's my identity that I've chosen for myself. So if you ask me who I am, one of the answers might be, I'm an abundance architect, right? And so I've created an identity for myself, that all the other stuff becomes easy, right? So you got to have a certain mental model, right? Ask yourself, right now, what is the mental model I want to have for who I am in this world, and then choose the highest version. And even if it feels uncomfortable, like clothes that are too big for you, grow into it?

CK LIN 1:27:53
I love that. So with that said, for people who are inspired by your story, mental model, by the way, you think, by the way, you transmit the universal energy through you. Where can people find you: is there a websites? or Instagram? Is there a Facebook like, Where Where do you want people to go and follow up with Rey's point of view?

REY BRANNEN 1:28:16
You know, there is no such thing as present. You know, there was a point where I was trying to sell this book online or whatever, I took it offline. Let's make that part of my challenge for you know, part two to maybe, you know, get the book out and about, really, yeah, yeah. My purpose today is is literally to, to just serve. And, you know, there's no thing that I have for offer right now, whether it's a book or anything, like, my abundance is, it's, it's there already, right? Like, I don't need anything like that. But on the other hand, you know, there's a sense of like, when you when you say that, uh, how can I put these ideas out into the world more I need to get on that. So I will take that as a challenge.

CK LIN 1:29:01
Beautiful. Well leave that to part two. I mean, I really want to acknowledge you, I am acknowledging you Rey for being here and sharing so generously from the studies of your life: from the academic to the economical to the esoteric, to spirituality. Really, really appreciate how you show up. Really appreciate how you transmit the wisdom of your ways, and the tactics that you have cultivated that you figure out throughout your lifetime and more to come. Can't wait to co create with you the next one. Thank you so much for being here.