If wisdom lies within, why are we having 3 Principles conversations?
“Techniques will not help you to find the knowledge or the happiness you seek. I would call techniques the lost man’s way to enlightenment”
p.53 The Enlightened Gardener Revisited by Sydney Banks
This morning running through my mind was the question, ‘What I can bring to conversations with groups I work with? Picking up The Enlightened Gardener Revisited, I opened the book randomly on page 53 and my eyes fell on the line above.
It presents something of a paradox. On the one hand, people are seeking truth and often ask ‘how’ do I see this, on the other hand wisdom lies within.
So why set up an online group based on sharing the Three Principles or run a virtual programme to have these conversations?
Why do I go and run groups in a local mental health charity’s centre to share this understanding?
What is really going on?
When this understanding known as the 3 Principles first came into my awareness I got really excited. I saw something. I realised I was okay and in that realisation a large pile of thinking about my mental health dropped away.
But life wasn’t all hunky dory
Just as I always had, I experienced moments of joy….. but
I still had dark times, difficult times, horrible times. Some parts of my life I experienced as frankly unpleasant.
And I used to get stuck. Really stuck. Stuck back in that prison of my thinking.
So I began devouring 3 principles materials. Webinars, books, signed up for courses. The eager beaver.
For a while I hung out in Bliss Valley. My inclination was to stay there. Like I deserved a vacation after all that mental struggle and strife.
But no…..
Doubts, fears, insecurity came crowding back so much I wondered if I would ever be free of them.
I hit a wall ……
“I’m going to scream if I hear another word about the 3Ps.”
I went cold turkey and stopped consuming any 3P material for a couple of months.
But then a few months ago, something changed. The struggle and effort went out of trying to understand this thing called the 3Ps.
So now moods still flow through me but I worry less about the ones I used to label A PROBLEM.
I get anxious, insecure, irritated and all the things everyone feels. Sometimes these moods hang around a while; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I see what’s going on, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get really upset and it can feel like I have ‘gone back’ into struggle and strife.
And yet, there is a difference.
I come out quicker. The moods are less and less compelling. If I get a bit lost, I don’t tend to give myself such a hard time afterwards. Seeing it more as a bump in the road. I know I still have blind spots. People in my life seem to be showing up differently too. My nearest and dearest but strangers too. There is more laughter, more love, more fun, more ease (mostly).
As my focus moves away from worrying about my moods, I am getting more and more curious about what lies beyond them…..
How and why did this happen?
I honestly have no real idea. But I can make a story about that for you…..
What it looks like to me now is I was lucky enough to hang out with folk who themselves dwell in a state of expanded consciousness. Being with them, was an invitation to allow my own consciousness to expand; to let go of more and more stories/beliefs/ideas about myself, the world and others and to surrender to the flow of life coming through me.
My intellect has always been my trusty steed. I experienced the world through my intellect. If I analysed things enough then surely I would figure them out.
It has been a long, slow sweet parting of the ways between me and my intellect.
I value it and know it has helped me in all kinds of ways, but for this particular journey, I eventually realised, I had to go it alone, without my intellect. But not really alone. For once you surrender to the flow of life, you find you are never alone, there are so many who offer to walk alongside or hold a lantern up for us.
I feel huge gratitude for so many people who have shared and are sharing this journey with me. Too many to name….
When I hear people suffering, stuck in the prison of their own thinking, asking for help to get free, it can be tempting to respond to the request for a fix or a technique. And I have gone down that route sometimes…..
But today I am reminded again, that something far bigger than me, flows through here in virtual and real spaces where these conversations are being held, in homes across the globe where people extend love and understanding to each other and my job is simply to allow that feeling to flow when I post and respond to comments.
In that feeling is an invitation to us all to see deeper, see beyond our beliefs, ideas and thoughts, see more of what we really are. People pointed the way for me and as I now point the way for others, I too am seeing deeper and deeper and the journey is getting lighter and lighter with more and more comedy and laughter along the way.
Thank you for reading and being in this conversation…….
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Juliet Fay based in West Wales, UK, is a Marketing Geek and Three Principles Facilitator. Facilitating conversations in person and online with individuals, groups and teams to point people towards more ease in life and work. She also writes poems, articles, essays, prose and short stories. Contact Juliet via the Solcare website. To get email updates about new writing, events, programmes and meets ups, sign up to the e-mailing list here.
To learn more about the Three Principles ask to join Love Your Life Again, a Facebook group hosted by Juliet Fay of Solcare, for individuals social care workers and social entrepreneurs experiencing mental stress (or serving those that do). A place to look towards a deeper understanding of who we are and how our experience gets created. In this group you can connect with others and share insights into a new understanding of how the mind works known as The Three Principles as first articulated by Sydney Banks.This is an extension of the work Juliet does at a local mental health charity facilitating conversations with members, staff and volunteers. Please ask to join. Once you are a member you can invite others into the group.