The 3 Principles

I talk about the principles (Mind, Consciousness, Thought) in the articles I write. I didn’t discover them myself. I learned this approach from many people including George Pransky, Keith Blevens, Sandy Krot, Dicken Bettinger, Valda Monroe, Mavis Karn, Jack Pransky, Roger Mills, and others that I’m certain I’m forgetting. The realization of the Principles themselves, however, began with Syd Banks. Syd (who died a few years back) was an ordinary man living and ordinary life on Salt Spring Island off the coast of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Syd had one of those epiphanic moments that some human beings have that suddenly made everything very clear for him. Syd really saw the nature of reality in a very deep and lasting way. Following that experience, he began talking to others about how the principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought are the building blocks of all human experience. The more Syd talked to people about these principles and the more those people began to see the reality of the principles in their own lives, the better they felt. Slowly, word spread and others began to see what Syd* saw and incorporate it in their own lives and work.

In this article, I want to explain my understanding of the principles to hopefully clarify some of the questions I’m getting from readers. Before I do, let me say something about the word ‘principle’ and why it is used here.

A ‘principle’ in this understanding is roughly equivalent to what a scientist might call a ‘law’ – such as the ‘law of gravity’. The word ‘principle’ is used in this understanding to indicate that Mind, Consciousness, and Thought are irreducible. The principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought are always at work creating our moment-to-moment experience. These principles are the essential ingredients for all human experience, just as atoms are the essential ingredients of what we know as the physical universe.

The rest of this article is my attempt to explain or describe the principles. Please know that these are my descriptions as I currently understand the principles. There are others who see them at a much deeper level and they might describe them in different ways. I’d encourage you to look at Syd’s website below to get a fuller understanding. Here goes…

Mind
In this understanding, Mind is not what we typically think of when we hear the word ‘mind’. It isn’t referring to our thinking apparatus/brain or whatever the current understanding of ‘the mind’ is.

Instead, Mind is referring to the formless, Universal Intelligence that underlies all creation. This intelligence can be seen in simple, quotidian ways:
– a cut on your arm heals without any intentional effort
– a pumpkin grows from a tiny seed and becomes a pumpkin, not a rose or dandelion
– an ovum and sperm unite and grow into a tremendously complex human being
– vast ecosystems blend and support one another to maintain a nearly infinite variety of life on earth.

Mind is this vast, infinitely deep intelligence that grows our bodies, beats our hearts, and breathes our lungs. There is a lovely and intelligent design that creates, animates, and guides our little life and the seemingly infinite life of the universe.

Consciousness
The principle of Consciousness refers to the capacity to simply know that you are, and to be aware of all of the ‘objects’ that coalesce and dissolve in awareness. Consciousness is the capacity to be aware of life.

Thought
The principle of Thought points to the fact that thinking is happening all the time and takes the form of language and image. All thoughts are either language or image. All thoughts carry feeling with them. Thought-Feeling might be a better way of phrasing it. We don’t experience feeling without thought – they are two sides of the same coin. Feelings are the physical experience of thinking.

How It Works
While Mind powers life, Thought and Consciousness combine to create our moment-to-moment experience of living. Without Thought there can be no ‘flavor’ to experience. Without Consciousness there can be no awareness or knowing of experience. Without Mind, Consciousness and Thought can’t exist – there is no ‘power source’.

It’s An Inside-Out World
Sandy Krot is the first person I ever heard refer to the ‘inside-out nature of life’. I had no idea what she was talking about! My current understanding of what Sandy was attempting to point me towards is that we are always experiencing the effects (feelings) of our thinking moment-to-moment. Our feelings don’t come from our circumstances but from our thinking! We are always and only – EVER – feeling our thinking.

We have been taught to believe that the world ‘out there’ causes how we feel ‘in here’. For example, “my job bums me out” is a version of the outside-in world view. It says that my circumstances (out there) make me feel a certain way (in here). The inside-out view of the world recognizes that it is my thinking about my job that bums me out. The good news is that my thinking is always in flux, always changing without my needing to do anything about it. Seeing that can make a big difference in how we experience our lives.

*You can find a lot more about Syd and purchase his books and talks at http://www.sydneybanks.com.