What are the Three Principles and how can learning about them improve your life? I have personally found that reading about them has been transformational. In this post I will tell you a bit about them and how they can help you.
Introduction
The Three Principles originated from Sydney Banks. A chance remark from a therapist that “it’s all just your thoughts” triggered a realisation within him about the power of his thoughts. He then went on to explore and flesh out this revelation into the Three Principles. These are: Mind, Consciousness and Thought. To my mind these aren’t very helpful names for the concepts behind them but broadly these are:
Mind: the underlying creative power behind everything. What I would call “Source”
Consciousnesss: what gives us awareness of our thoughts and also gives them power
Thoughts: the thoughts that we think
How Can The Three Principles Help?
The single most important point that comes out of the Three Principles is that our entire experience of our life does not come from outside us. Instead it comes from within and our own thoughts create it. The key bit is that these are “only thoughts” and we can change our thoughts.
A Personal Example
Let me illustrate this using my own personal experience. Growing up my mother set exacting standards for myself. If I came home and reported that I got 96% in an exam she would say “what did you get wrong?”. I was also a sensitive child and if she got cross with me (e.g. I spilt something) she would say “look at the mess you’ve made. I’ve got to clean this up now”. I would take this personally and gradually formed the belief that “I’ve got to be perfect”.
Now, if I went to conventional therapy I would end up blaming my mother for being so harsh and not showing me the love or consideration that I was wanting. I would then have to work through these feelings. However, the truth is that my mother was just behaving the best way that she could given how she was brought up by her mother (who had the same exacting standards). Also, it was me, not anyone else, who formed the belief that “I’ve got to be perfect”. Instead of spending a lifetime blaming my mother, all I have to do is change that belief. After all, a belief is just a thought that we have repeated enough until it seems to be the truth.
Simply changing this thought was enough for me to lift all the years of pressure and expectation from my shoulders! I started to realise that my internal “self talk” was very critical and harsh and unloving. Once I saw this, I decided that I was no longer going to think like that. The result was transformational!
The Three Principles and Day To Day Life
This principle applies not just to long held beliefs but also governs how we experience life on a day to day basis. If something doesn’t go our way, how we think about it profoundly affects our emotional experience of that event. You know how when you’re in the first throws of love, everything in life just flows, little setbacks are unimportant and we just brush them off. On the other hand, when we’re feeling depressed, nothing seems to go our way and we feel thwarted at every turn. It just shows that our experience of events depends on our own internal state rather than what is happening to us. This revelation that we control how we experience life is the key message from the Three Principles. Once you become aware of your thoughts and how they control your experience of your life, then you can start to take control
Underlying Wisdom
Another key message is the fact that if we allow ourselves to be still and open then we have innate wisdom within us. This message is common across a wide variety of spiritual disciplines and the Three Principles also emphasises this. By listening to others with an open mind without comment, we can tap into our innate wisdom and understanding will arise from this.
Another take-away from the Three Principles is to be aware of our emotional state. When we are in a good place and feeling calm and peaceful then our thoughts are generally trustworthy and valid. However, when we are feeling depressed, sad or angry then our thought will generally be negative and “untrustworthy”. They won’t be valid sensible thoughts but will be coming from that negative emotional state that we are feeling. A simple rule would be: don’t make important decisions when in a bad emotional state!
Learning More About The Three Principles
Someone recommended a couple of books to read on The Three Principles which I found very helpful. The thing about these books is that you read them and think “there’s not really a lot too this”. However, by the end of the book you suddenly realise that you’ve changed as a person somehow! It’s a subtle yet transformational experience! The two books are:
“The Inside Out Revolution” by Michael Neill – a gentle introduction to the basic concepts
“Somebody Should Have Told Us” by Jack Pransky – goes into more detail
I recommend that they are read in this order. If you find that the Three Principles is really for you then there is a whole lot more information out there to help you. You may find The Three Principles Foundation a useful starting point.
Conclusion
For me the Three Principles is “stripped down” spirituality. It just gets down to the two essentials of “thoughts create your life” and “connect to the underlying wisdom”. It’s like Zen Buddhism compared to other forms of Buddhism, stripping back everything to get to the fundamentals. For people who find spirituality and all the religious symbolism that often goes with it unappealing, this is the perfect life alternative. For everyone, it’s a powerful reminder of how important it is to be aware of what we are thinking and how it creates our reality.
Other book recommendations – see: If You Read One Book On Spirituality….
