Sydney Banks, a Scottish welder living on Salt Spring Island in Canada, experienced a sudden enlightenment during a seemingly trivial conversation in 1973. He realised that there is no such thing as insecurity. It was just his thoughts, and these thoughts were creating his reality every moment. This insight led him to what he called the Three Principles: Universal Mind, Universal Consciousness, and Universal Thought. These Principles create our reality from the inside out.
The Film Metaphor: Understanding the Principles
To explain the Three Principles, we can imagine our life as a film. Consciousness is like the film screen. Thought is the light projecting images onto this screen, and when this light meets the screen of Consciousness, the drama of our lives unfolds. Mind is the power source, the electricity that makes the entire experience possible.
In the films of our lives, we play the main characters, believing that outside events and situations dictate our feelings. So, we strive to control these conditions to be happy—be it a successful career, a perfect partner, wealth, exotic vacations, or a dream home. However, this type of happiness is often fleeting and doesn’t fulfil us at a deep level.
Stepping Outside the Illusion
Sydney Banks emphasised that the answers we seek are not found in the storyline of the film. No matter where we go or what we do in the film, we remain within the confines of our thought-projected reality. However, when we step outside the film, we begin to recognise that we are merely experiencing a reality shaped by our thoughts. We realise that we are both the actors in and the spectators of the film of our life.
To find true peace and contentment, we need to step back and understand how our reality is being created, rather than focusing on what is being created. The light of Thought is projected onto the screen of Consciousness, forming our films or individual realities. This reality, however, is an illusion—albeit a perfect one—where we experience all the emotions: pain, sadness, anger, joy, etc.
When this understanding truly sinks in, we wake up from our dream of thoughts. It’s as if we are lifted out of our old conditioned thought patterns, like a needle coming off a groove of a vinyl record, freeing us from the deeply ingrained habits. Then a spaciousness opens up in our awareness, and our innate well-being naturally arises from within. With this new understanding, we come to realise that our well-being has always been present, just waiting to be uncovered.
If you want to find out more about the Three Principles and explore it in depth, you can contact me. I offer sessions in Swiss Cottage in north London, and Exeter and Totnes in Devon, as well as online sessions.
Fumiaki Tanaka MSTAT, RCST
Member of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique
Registered Craniosacral Therapist
Tel: 0730 5577700