What Are the 3 Principles?

The understanding that is changing everyday lives every day

In the summer of 2017, my life changed in a way I could have never imagined.

I came across an understanding that would bring me a whole new lens through which to see and understand how life is experienced, created, and lived.

This understanding is changing the lives of people all over the world as more people discover this understanding every day. The community is still small but growing by thousands every year and it can change your life too.

In the silence of our minds lies creative incubation, bringing the wisdom and the joy we all seek. — Sydney Banks, The Missing Link

A small disclaimer

When I speak to groups about this understanding I always start by filling them in on my experience with “newbies”. “I always get one of four reactions when I explain these principles”, I tell them. So don’t be surprised if you fall into one of these categories. And if you fall into the last, all I ask is that you try to keep an open mind…

4 Reactions:

• “Wow, I never thought about life like this before. I am blown away. “
• “ I don’t quite understand what you are talking about but I am curious so keep talking.”
• “Yes, of course, I already knew everything you are telling me. “
• “No, you are wrong. What you are saying is not true about me.”

The Syd Story

The author of these principles was a man named Sydney Banks. This is my retelling of his story as I have heard it from many practitioners. I am speaking from memory so my apologies to any reader who has a more accurate telling.

Syd was a Scottish immigrant to Canada. He had a ninth-grade education and he worked as a welder in a pulp mill on Vancouver Island. It was the 70’s and he and his wife were having some challenges in their marriage. So, as was the fad during that time, they went off on a weekend retreat where they were meant to learn how to yell at each other in order to improve their relationship.

As the story goes, Syd didn’t like the classes and he was skipping class on one of the days and having coffee with a psychologist who was also attending with his wife. They were arguing over which one of them was “more insecure.” The psychologist turned to Syd at one point in the conversation and said, “Syd, you aren’t insecure, you just think you are.”

Syd had an amazing realization from that simple statement. His reply to the psychologist was “do you know what you just said?”

From that simple statement, Syd began to see the role that THOUGHT plays in creating our experiences. He realized that his insecurity was coming from his own self-created thinking, not from anything outside of him. He could no longer blame the world or anyone around him. His life began to change dramatically.

The story goes on to describe Syd staying awake for three days as he contemplated this realization. This then led to a second realization of our spiritual nature, of how experiences and life are created. The fact that there is an energy and a wisdom behind life. That it is observable and that we experience it in every moment. And that it is this energy, this wisdom that creates life itself.

Syd was certain that this discovery of these principles would change the field of psychology overnight. In the same way that germ theory has changed the field of medicine and that the discovery of a round earth changed the fields of navigation and science.

As George Pransky says in his forward to Syd’s book The Missing Link:

This book, The Missing Link, connects the spiritual nature and the psychological nature of humanity. It shows the reader that these facets of life are, and always have been, one — just as seven days and one week are two different terms denoting the same unit of time.

What happened to Syd was an enlightenment experience. But it was also more. Syd not only saw the nature of our formless to form experience on earth but also the way our psychology is born, how it is formed, and a path to freedom for those who are willing to really look and as he liked to say really SEE.

At first, he called this understanding Health Realization and later turned to call it the 3 principles.

So, what are these principles?

“MIND is the universal intelligence behind life, CONSCIOUSNESS creates an awareness of what we call reality, and THOUGHT is the power to create our moment to moment existence.” — Sydney Banks

and with a little more elaboration from me:

MIND — is the spiritual intelligence and creative nature of the universe. It is the space within us from which new possibility arises, where love resides. This principle points to our most inner core where we are all, always, ok. It is the space before thought. It is your spirit, your soul and it is Spirit or Source.

CONSCIOUSNESS — gives us awareness, the ability to experience, and a lens through which we see the world. Our level of consciousness is ever-changing as we sometimes see more and sometimes see less about what is real and what is fiction. We sometimes have greater access to our deepest wisdom and at other times, not so much.

THOUGHT — is the creative form that provides every experience in our lives. Our thoughts are born from MIND, experienced through CONSCIOUSNESS, and create that which we ultimately experience as “reality”. THOUGHT is the ticker tape that runs through your brain all day long. It is impossible to experience anything but through the principle of thought.

How does seeing this create change?

I wish I could tell you for sure as sometimes it feels almost magical in nature.

What I have experienced is a greater sense of clarity. That seeing how experience is made takes the mystery away and leaves the enjoyment. Takes the pain away and leaves the purity.

Seeing that all of my thoughts come from me and not from my experiences gives me the freedom to believe the ones I like and ignore the ones I don’t.

Knowing that Universal MIND is always there to hold me. That I don’t have to hold myself. That I can let go and be good with what is. That I have a source of unlimited creativity.

Knowing that another good idea will always be there. That everything has always been ok, and that I can trust that it always will, even if it seems otherwise. That I have within me everything that I need in order to know what to do in any moment. Incredible.

Being comfortable in the humanness of ever-changing levels of consciousness. Knowing that I will sometimes be caught up in unhelpful thinking and that all I need to do is let it pass and that clarity will show up once again.

Knowing that when my thinking settles, as it always does, that consciousness will rise and that it is always changing. Up and down and up again. The cyclical nature of life itself.

That all is just as it is meant to be in every moment. Beauty.

So, my friends, I invite you to join this journey.

To learn just a little bit and then learn just a little bit more. To see how this understanding brings ease and possibility. To join the thousands of us who are learning together on a journey of knowledge that is limitless.

For a deeper opportunity to experience your own insights, I invite you to sign up for my 5-day, self-guided coaching experience here:

And follow this publication; Less Stress More Success

Best always,

Deborah