The Three Principles

Sydney Banks

1931 - 2009

Sydney Banks, Scottish-born philosopher and author and lecturer wrote "The Enlightened Gardener" in 1973, explaining what Banks called The Three Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought.

The insight that Banks shared had a impact on the practice of psychology and psychiatry within a growing community of professionals in therapy, education and both community and individual rehabilitation.

Correctional facilities, halfway houses, even homeless shelters have
introduced The Three Principles with consistent success. Banks's words have been an affirmative and constructive force in the lives of thousands

“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world". Sydney Banks 

We’re a fast-growing mental health service, using The Three Principles. A new approach which is rooted in the belief that we all have inner mental good health and differs from other approaches as it focuses on teaching health rather than treating illness.   

​

AND we’re the first organization in the UK to be able to offer this in a community setting free of charge.  

What are the Three Principles? 

When it comes to the human experience, we can understand the foundational elements in the form of three universal principles: Mind, Consciousness and Thought. 

While those words mean different things to different people, the principles they point to have been observed and studied in science, philosophy, and religion throughout the ages. They’re the basic facts of life – formless, foundational elements which can be observed only through: 

The Principle of Mind: 

​

Mind is the source and intelligence behind all of life. The Principle of Mind is the formless energy that is responsible for the creation of all of life. It exists completely beyond the world of form. It is the eternal stillness and silence that lies before the movement and noise of created life. 

​

The Principle of Consciousness: 

The capacity to be aware and experience life is innate in human beings. Our level of awareness in any given moment and state of mind determines the quality of our experience. 

​

The Principle of Thought: 

We create our individual experience of reality via the vehicle of thought. Thought is the missing link between the formless intelligence of life and the created world of form. 

​

So what does this all mean?  

​

When we are overthinking or in a low state of mind, we are only aware of our own thinking, and it appears to us as objective truth, even though it only exists in our own thoughts. Then, as we expand into another level of consciousness, we become aware of the subjective nature of our thoughts, which tend to be different to other people’s thoughts.  

Expand further, and we become aware of two different kinds of thoughts – the ones that come from our personal experiences (memory) and intellectual knowledge and the ones that appear when we have a quiet mind (i.e. inspiration, intuition, and wisdom). 

An even deeper understanding reveals that we live in a world of Thought – that in fact, we’re not designed to experience anything else. This is the first real recognition of “the human matrix” – that things are definitely not what they seem, no matter how real they look, taste, smell, sound, and feel.