There are many expressions that are used when people are sharing the Principles that are easily grasped and interpreted by our intellect, but do not mean what people commonly think they mean. Our intellect, the repository of everything we have learned or know so far, is quick to jump in and give us easy answers. That is why we tell people to listen for the feeling, or listen beyond the words. Here we offer some examples of this. A common one is the word "listen." The intellect listens to remembe...
Jun 08, 2024•31 min•Ep. 165
When we decide we want to change or we feel we need to change, we often work at it. We try really hard to change. We come up with strategies; we seek advice; we read self-help books; we go to courses, thinking we'll find a technique, or a means to fix ourselves. Too often, that leads to hopelessness and discouragement. Too often we monitor ourselves and force ourselves and get ourselves so stressed and anxious that we give up. Trying hard, despite good intentions, rarely works for long. True cha...
Jun 01, 2024•29 min•Ep. 164
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May 18, 2024•1 min•Ep. 163
A listener of this podcast asked us to explain what we mean when we tell people to "reflect." When we're trying to understand ourselves and life, we tend to ask ourselves "why" questions. Why is this happening to me? Why can't I come up with an answer? Why did so-and-so do this to me? The list is endless. "Why?" takes us in the wrong direction because it gets our personal thinking going -- we start scrambling through the memory library looking and feeling worse and worse. Reflection means wonder...
May 13, 2024•32 min•Ep. 162
We are all "lifelong learners" but we are taught early on to "figure things out." Everyone can remember being told as a child, "Think about it. You'll figure it out." As we move through life, we spend more and more time going over and over life situations in our minds, trying to come up with answers, or asking other people for answers and then trying to figure out how to follow their ideas. This takes us away from the most wonderful resource we have: the ability to have original thought, ideas t...
May 04, 2024•31 min•Ep. 161
We are very dependent on our intellect (everything we already know that is stored in our brain) for a lot in life. It allows us to remember how to run things, where we put things, what we've learned, how to find our friends' houses, how to do our jobs, phone numbers, people's names, etc. Sometimes people hear us talking about looking to live from original thought, wisdom, and common sense rather than from memory as if we had to reinvent the wheel every day. Or they hear "wisdom" as something rea...
Apr 27, 2024•31 min•Ep. 160
We might awaken from nightmares frightened or sad, but as soon as we wake up we realize it was just a dream. Even if we find our dreams disturbing, we know they are dreams. Yet when we fall into low mood thinking or get stuck on troubled memories or entertain fears during the day, we don't call them "daymares." We don't realize we can "wake up" and put those thoughts behind us. We're always thinking. Thoughts come to mind. If they are distressing, they affect our feeling state and we can hop on ...
Apr 20, 2024•32 min•Ep. 159
Low mood thinking is always compelling because it generates strong feelings and it arises from insecurity. So it looks like we have to do something about it. It is habitual thinking that comes to mind from our memories with a familiar feeling, which gives it more weight. People complain about being "plagued" or "haunted" or "frequently visited by" negative thoughts, and the need to "deal with" them. The Principles show us that thoughts are nothing more than images brought to mind by our own powe...
Apr 13, 2024•32 min•Ep. 158
People are often confused by the power we have as thinkers to create our experience of reality. It does NOT mean that we can stare at a new car in a showroom and manifest it in our life; it does not mean we can wish for an outcome of a situation and make it happen. Life is happening; there is actual reality in which we live. But what WE see of it, we see from our own thinking. So in a low state of mind, we might look out at a rainy day and feel glum about having to go out in it. In a different s...
Mar 30, 2024•29 min•Ep. 157
When we recognize the simplicity of living in the now, following our wisdom as things come to mind, we live at peace. We benefit from a flow of insight which allows us to see more clearly our own power to think and create our experience of reality and understand life. We learn as we go, finding the lessons and blessings in disappointment as well as in great outcomes. We are inspired by fresh thought, and we start to see that we can't figure things out or force a plan to work out; but we always g...
Mar 23, 2024•29 min•Ep. 156
The definition of changing our minds is "having a new thought." It is natural to allow thoughts to come and go, responsive to the moment, without attachment to any thought. If we get stuck on a thought, though, we hold onto it. We think some things so often for so long that they seem more "real" to us. We all have ideas we assume are true because we've always thought them. We easily let go of passing thoughts and we change our minds all day long without even realizing it. In the face of habitual...
Mar 09, 2024•31 min•Ep. 155
Each one of us is always creating our own experience of reality with our unique power to think. So there really is no such thing as objective reality. We all see what we see; someone looking at the same situation will see it differently. Indeed, in a different state of mind, WE may see it entirely differently. So our experience of life is unique to each of us, and what we see for ourselves looks compelling and true to us. The Principles explain this. Seeing the truth of this reveals why disagree...
Mar 02, 2024•31 min•Ep. 154
A lot of people talk about "doing the Principles," or "using the Principles," or "combining the Principles with other 'approaches,'" or thinking the Principles are a "really interesting method." That downplays the power of Principles as words that stand for and describe formless power, the essential energy, from which all creation takes form. We use words to represent the idea of what that energy means. But the Principles are the understanding of how life works that wisdom brings us when we look...
Feb 24, 2024•30 min•Ep. 153
When you hear about the Principles, you hear of "Levels of Consciousness." What does this mean? Our ever-changing "level" is the degree to which we have insights that lead us to realize that all thought is illusion, merely what we make up in the moment. All of it, even though early on, much of it seemed "real." The more we realize that the power to think is what sets us free and the content is variable and transitory, the higher our level of consciousness. The level is our ability to live at pea...
Feb 17, 2024•31 min•Ep. 152
Listening to others in neutral is difficult until we understand how thinking works in all of us. Everyone is creating their own experience of every moment in life. No two people see anything exactly alike; we all think our own thoughts and draw information from our own memory and see things in our own way. And we express what we see to each other. Knowing how the power of thought works allows us not to take things personally, but to listen to each other without judgment. We can learn from others...
Feb 10, 2024•34 min•Ep. 151
Many people ask us whether encouraging people to find a calm state of mind and contentment isn't just positive thinking. Our state of mind is BEFORE what we think; when we are at peace and our minds are quiet, the quality of thoughts we produce is a much higher level than the thoughts we produce from a negative or upset state of mind. The problem with the technique of Positive Thinking is that is doesn't come from our own level of Consciousness; it's a technique we impose on ourselves to try to ...
Feb 03, 2024•31 min•Ep. 150
The Principles describe the way the formless energy behind life manifests in the creation of form. They describe the way creation works. Divine Mind, formless intelligent energy, is the force behind all of creation. Divine Thought is what allows us to bring ideas and images to life within our own minds. Divine Consciousness, the energy behind awareness, allows us to see our thoughts as true, as the reality we experience. The Principles are descriptive of what it means to be alive and how we navi...
Jan 27, 2024•33 min•Ep. 149
Discernment is not judgement. We can speak up if we see a friend heading down a dangerous path, or if we notice a client shading the truth, etc. The difference between the negativity of "judgement" and exercising our common sense with good will and a loving feeling is the difference between harboring negative opinions and speaking from wisdom when we see something of concern. It would not be an act of love or a responsible service to others to fail to reprimand a child for stealing, or try to st...
Jan 20, 2024•34 min•Ep. 148
Not being judgmental does not mean not using common sense to speak up or act honestly when we see people we care about or people we serve doing things that are contrary to living at peace, in harmony with life. Syd says "a non-judgmental mind is a mind at peace." That refers to things like personal judgments -- resentments, attitudes towards certain types of people or negativity, things that carry a bad feeling. But, for example, if you know someone you love is using dangerous drugs, the loving ...
Jan 13, 2024•32 min•Ep. 147
People often express confusion about Sydney Banks' advice to "just be yourself; be ordinary." They hear it as if it means "mediocre" or "not realizing your potential." Actually, the deeper meaning of "ordinary" is "part of the order of things," and that is what we point to with the Principles. Everyone comes into life with extraordinary gifts: the divine universal energy of Mind powers us to be able to create Thought and become Conscious of our Thoughts as our reality. To be ordinary is to be co...
Jan 06, 2024•31 min•Ep. 146
It's that time of year again when we're all expected to be joyful and enthusiastic, and a lot of people just feel stressed, pressured, and anxious about doing all the things they think they have to do for the holidays. We forget that we're making it up. It's our own thinking about holidays, our own exaggerated ideas of what we need to get done, our own pressure to make everything perfect for friends and family, that creates a lot of worried, stressful thinking. We don't lose our natural resilien...
Dec 16, 2023•30 min•Ep. 145
(We are re-sharing a podcast from last year during the holiday season because it feels timely to us to remind ourselves and all of us that love and understanding are the answer to to human suffering and the problems of the world.) The universal energy of creation finds expression in human beings through our ability to think and experience our thinking. It moves from perfect formlessness into the forms we create via thoughts. We "see" thoughts come to life as our personal reality. We remember our...
Dec 02, 2023•28 min•Ep. 144
Many people struggle with the painful feeling of shame. Perhaps we were told as children that we "should be ashamed" of something. Perhaps we suffered mistreatment that we interpreted to mean we were not worthy of love and care. Perhaps we did things for which we harbor shame. Shame is nothing more than a negative thought about ourselves. As we understand that people are always doing what makes sense to them at the time, given their level of consciousness, we realize that there is nothing to be ...
Nov 25, 2023•31 min•Ep. 143
People tend to define themselves according to the outside world. We try to "be" something or someone, pursuing the ideas we and others have made up about ourselves, and react to events and people. The Principles show us we are guided by our spiritual power of Thought and, when we have peace of mind, by the quiet wisdom beyond our personal knowledge. Once we find stillness of our own minds, we act with the certainty, strength, and confidence wisdom brings. We fearlessly follow opportunities life ...
Nov 18, 2023•32 min•Ep. 142
We are often asked, "Why is my child hanging out with 'bad' friends?" Or "Why do I keep falling for abusive men?" Or "Why do I keep doing business with people who cheat me?" Those questions arise from one deeper question: "What is it about the state of mind I live in that attracts me to the 'wrong' people?" Everyone lives in a range of feeling and understanding that they would call "normal." People who live at the same level we do feel safe and familiar. So our own security and peace of mind det...
Nov 04, 2023•32 min•Ep. 141
Everyone has guilty thoughts. Some people get stuck in guilt and never lose the feeling. Others experience guilt and make amends if possible, or learn from the experience it's related to and move on. Guilt is a feeling that informs us we have done or said something that we realize was not right or caused harm. It is healthy to experience the feeling, reflect on the source, and clear it up. It isn't healthy to go on and on harboring guilt over things from the past which we cannot resolve or chang...
Oct 28, 2023•30 min•Ep. 140
Psychology is a product of early 20th century interest in studying the soul and the mind. The word psychology has its origins in Greek words meaning "the study of the soul." As scientific methods -- focus on the measurable -- became the focus of study, Psychology abandoned the immaterial, immeasurable soul, calling it the purview of Religion, and focused on behavior, which is measurable. With that, we lost the understanding that a soul at peace would generate different behaviors than a soul in t...
Oct 14, 2023•25 min•Ep. 139
The essence of The Three Principles is that everything in the world originates from Spiritual Energy formed into thought. The Principles belong to the Spiritual realm; they describe how the energy of life works and what creation is. Often, when people hear "spirituality," they think religions, but religions are the form the energy of spirituality has taken. Often people mistake spirituality for a learned behavior: they take certain actions or define themselves certain ways to show they're Spirit...
Oct 07, 2023•33 min•Ep. 138
Most of us grew up being told that humility was recognition that we were "mere mortals," or that humility was a set of behaviors -- modesty, consideration for others' feelings and needs, being grateful. The Principles describe a universal fact: we all come from the pure energy of life, and before we use our gifts to think and see our thinking as our reality, we are all the same. Pure energy; pure potential to think. Humility is our own insight that that is true: we are distinguished by our uniqu...
Sep 16, 2023•27 min•Ep. 137
People are always asking us to "define" Mind, Thought, and Consciousness again, or put them in different words. If you're trying to "figure out" the Principles by looking at the words, you can easily become frustrated and confused. Definitions are the intellect trying to figure things out. Look to understand how life works through us, from within us. Experience the life force that is our spirit in action, recognize how real our thinking looks and feels to us, and how quickly life looks different...
Sep 09, 2023•28 min•Ep. 136
