“Thought is not reality; yet it is through Thought that our realities are created.” — Sydney Banks
The Scottish born philosopher Sydney Banks once stated: “Someone once said to me, ‘Are you telling me that chair isn’t real, that it’s only thought?’ I said ‘Of course the chair is real. But it comes to you via Thought’.”
Banks went onto discover The Three Principles of Mind which influenced the practice of psychology and psychiatry in the years to follow. The Three Principles of Mind are:
- Mind: The universal intelligence behind life which is the source of all.
- Consciousness: The awareness of life unfolding and what we create.
- Thought: The ability to create, through thinking.
You be might thinking: “How does this relate to me?” Stay with me as I unpack this further. Many people subscribe to the outside-in paradigm whereby external circumstances are responsible for the way they feel. And that makes sense.
I don’t disagree because I’ve experienced such moments until I became aware of my thoughts. The point worth making is: We create our experience of life from inside-out, not the other way around.
No one or no event can make us feel what we don’t already believe. I may try to impose my thoughts or reality on you, but if you don’t believe it at the level of thought, you don’t experience it emotionally.
The Cuban born essayist Anaïs Nin once said: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Our reality is the sum of our past conditioning. It has to be, because no two people share the same view of reality, even twins differ in the way they perceive the world.
This is empowering for several reasons, because it confirms we are in control of how we respond to life’s circumstances. Are you content with this idea that our response and thoughts about life determine our happiness, not the other way round?
