The Three Principles Discussion Thread

[kuya]

I just listened to today's talk in Michael Neill's 30-day series - turns out it directly relates to our discussion above about change: Day 20 - The Power of Hope - YouTube.

WOW! WOW!

That just blew me away!

This pertains to so much that I have experienced. Suddenly you can simply change your mind and realise your thinking and perception was wrong.

Provided you can drop any ego that may be attached to your initial position change can occur in an instant.

[starty]

I just listened to today's talk in Michael Neill's 30-day series - turns out it directly relates to our discussion above about change: Day 20 - The Power of Hope - YouTube.

I love this, thank you NS. I am struggling at the moment with work shite. I know its shite but I just cannot get it out of my head. But deep down every time I stress I KNOW it is just my thoughts regarding the situation that are making it worse. Like Michael Neill says, at the moment that is my priority but I am free to change my mind any time I choose. Love it. Just knowing that gives me a sense of freedom.

[starty]

#3 WHY YOUR BRAIN DETESTS THE THREE PRINCIPLES
This is the 3rd of 8 messages, in the 3 Principles Introductory Training
Reading time: 6 min
This week we’ll take a look at why people tend to get confused about the principles. Confused, and with that, sometimes dismissive.
On the other hand, for some it just clicks immediately. They just realize the whole picture in a blink and there we stand, squinting with raised eyebrows (still with the confused thought storm going on in our head) thinking, well really, s/he can’t really know it all, not totally, could she?
Some people do – they really do get a deep realization about what The Three Principles point to in just one thought. That’s one of the absolute beauties of this understanding. Anyone can have a huge insight – at any moment – no matter if you are a welder, a dentist or a quantum physicist.
The interesting thing is – it actually seems as if people knowing themselves to be very intellectual and analytical tend to have a harder time to realize these universal principles existence and their workings in our day to day life.
Why?
Maybe because your intellectual, analytical brain is really, really good at interpreting, simplifying and categorizing new information.
If you haven’t already, I invite you to read my blogpost What Are The 3 Principles for State of Mind® where I talk about all three principles: Mind, Thought and Consciousness. Let me know what you think in the comments and feel free to share it with your network if you liked it.
If you read it already – welcome to the rest of the article below

Conquerring intellect
It was when I started learning about the The Three Principles that I experienced for the first time how pure simplicity could be extremely confusing for the brain.
I wasn’t alone in experiencing this. Through the last years I’ve seen plenty of people in the same boat: Sitting there, frowning our eyebrows, intensely trying to wrap our little brain around it. ”It can’t be this simple!?” we muttered in the corners.
When looking back I’d say that the confusion some of us experience has to do with the basic functioning of the brain. Our built in process of perception demands our brain to comprehend our world in a foreseeable pattern. The brain does this in order for us to feel safe in our day to day life.
Our brain is always in full flash mode trying to make sense of our world. In every given moment we are accepting or discarding impulses as relevant or irrelevant for our consciousness to be aware of. It’s designed to interpret, simplify and systematize all information – and it’s really good at it. Yet, the way our process of perception work – surprisingly enough – makes it harder for many of us to understand what The Three Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought “are” and what their existence means for us as individual, at depth.
When we get introduced to The Three Principles it seems our brain goes berserk with the information. The physical brain goes at the known by few, spiritual dimension of The Three Principles and tries to fit it in with the knowledge of yesterday. It searches through any memory you’ve ever had; TV-news watched over the years; movies we’ve seen; anything in the memory that we’ve heard or seen or been told about; anything our imagination can come up with that might fit and help categorize and understand the information just entering the building. Most often some sort of match is made. Too often it tends to not be a correct match.
GOING OUTSIDE-IN
The understanding of the creation of the human experience differs on a basic level between the current “old” paradigm, as compared to the belief system governing the understanding of The Three Principles.
The majority of people think that their experiences of life is created mainly from the outside-in: things happening on the outside of us, our circumstances seems to be what shapes our experience of our life in every given moment. We then see it as our thoughts might perpetuate (but not determine) whatever we come to experience.
The Three Principles explains how our experiences comes about from the opposite direction: from the inside-out, that our experience of our circumstances are created only from the inside-out. The only source of our experience is our own thoughts in each and every specific moment.
What seem to happen is that when the brain tries to decode, categorise and simplify the understanding inherent in The Three Principles, the data does not (for most people) match the previous established thought pattern. This leaves people in ”cognitive limbo”. Personally I don’t particurlarly care for limbo but have also been known to highly detest especially cognitive limbo. Logic is the shit. As long as we get to set the logic, right?
I believe that this is one of the reason why many people stall when they hear about the three principles. When people hear something they can’t really place; feel that they don’t really ”get” what it’s about – they tend to back off.
”A confused brain does not buy” is a common saying within marketing – and it’s the same thing here.
When the brain isn’t able to find a satisfying match for the understanding within the three principles, the over ambitious brain will create and accept assumptions that will make the new information fit into previous patterns of understanding.
The brain will at the same time effectively discard incongruities in favour of matching incoming information to existing patterns of understanding. When this happens, the unfortunate result is that the understanding of the three principles often will be translated into something that they’re NOT; explained in a way which is not true to the core nature of the understanding of the principles.
What I’ve seen so far, a lot of people – or, their brain – believes they’ve founds a match (or unconsioucly fabricates a match) between The Three Principles and cognitive psychology, positive thinking, doing meditation, become better at analysing and understanding our thoughts in order to make better choices.
But they are not the same thing. They are based in another paradigm of how we understand our experiences. The Three Principles turns the whole belief system – our reigning paradigm – up-side-down.
JUST ANOTHER OUTSIDE-IN-SOLUTION
When people hear about the three principles for the first time there’s often one of two choices made:
They say ”Okaaay… ” [paus] ”interesting…”… Then decides in the back of their head that the three principles ARE what the logic of their brains have reported in to them – whatever that might be. They trust their ”logic”, case closed, move on. They are interested and the conversation continues – but they continue to listen still from the understanding lying in the old paradigm: Outside-In.
Or…
They pause; squint at you a bit as they look at you and say: ”Weren’t you into this other stuff, neuro-hypno-mental-something? NP…? What ever happened with that?” – or something similar – or completely different – that diverts the conversation in some other direction. Any next time you might start referring to the three principles you’ll notice they’ll drop eye contact and might start scanning the surrounding.
When the person detects that their own logic in the moment aren’t making the ”right” assumptions, that they don’t really understand what you’re talking about – or, at least they don’t interpret the information about The Principles in the same way as most people in the “core” Three Principles community… When this happens, they tend to back off. Interesting enough, surprisingly many seem to get offended when you won’t confirm that their outside-in interpretation and explanation of The Principles is the same thing as you see.
Well really, I do understand. Why would there be a completely different understanding out there, three universal principles, that people haven’t heard about?
If it hasn’t been picked up by the many, it’s probably not a valid theory; philosophy or idea, right? From that point, the absolutely easiest way is – when in doubt – to discard it as irrelevant information – or settle with an assumption that it’s the same as ”the other stuff”. Mission completed: Information decoded, understood. Back to “being safe” since the information has been decoded, simplified and categorized.
Goodies locked in by mistaken paradigm
Don’t categorize it as the same as “the other stuff”.
Don’t do that.
In my view – if you truly believe that it’s all the same stuff, then just discard The Three Principles and don’t start defining them from an outside-in understanding. Just leave it be.
If The Three Principles are ”understood” from the outside-in – then a whole paradigm can go wrong – or at least, it can get lost; forgotten again –among the many. That would be such a loss – cause it is starting to reach more and more people who are pointed BACK to their innate wisdom and it leads people in the most adverse circumstances towards the hope and empowerment inherent in this understanding.
Leave the current shared definition of the 3 principles untouched for the next curious person to interpret, simplify and systematize and let their brain do the limbo.
Our great challenge is to override the mechanical process of perception taking place in our brain; see past our learnt patterns of understanding and whatever thoughts we’ve understood to be true about our experiences – until now.
If The Three Principles resonate with you, remember this when you get “fooled” by your thoughts for the fifties time that week:
Your brain will play tricks on you as it tries to lure you back to your old patterns of thought. It’s not trying to be naughty, the brain just really likes the seemingly clear structure accrued in the current “old” paradigm. So be kind to it – the more your thinking and trust strides in the way of the “new” inside-out paradigm; the more structures and patterns of new thought the brain will have at it’s feet to rely on. In time.

[kuya]

6 minute read , my arse! lol

Nice piece Starty.

It is funny how our minds turn cartwheels to try and fit this into something else....and it nearly fits some things ....then it jumps away like a bar of wet soap.

So many things I read and hear use the phrase 'we can only point towards the meaning'....I used to think this was wanky nonsense but now I have the same struggle.

Seeing the 'me' constructed from my thoughts navigating my day, my life, my 'reality' brings an amusing dreamlike quality sometimes. I am less attached to the outcome and therefore less stressed by them. Of course I remain concerned by the normal day to day matters but they are more entertaining than worrying.
I get annoyed at things, but am even entertained by my annoyance.

I still struggle with hurt feelings but am starting to see them differently as well...I SO need to be loved that I am far too affected by the casual neglect that is really routine behaviour by many people.

Bah! I am rambling.

Goodnight

[Guitarista]

Well I love you Kuya! Greetings all. The discussion and info here is real useful. I'm currently putting together the 7th Chakra principles. The 7th chakra is located at the crown in yer scone. I am interested in whether slightly thinning hair in the region opens up the chakra to divine energy any more than usual. My research is ongoing and I expect a paper to be published (pending funding) around 2020. Aside from that, keep the convo rolling!

[NoSugar]

Starty, that post sure describes me - always over-intellectualizing things, looking for the logic, and needing to see the data before I can believe... I think it is part of why the spiritual nature of the 3Ps hasn't become very clear to me yet. But I'm willing to wait and this understanding has brought me some experiences of unforced gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion, so I think I've had a glimpse :smile:.

Good to see you Mr G. I was wondering if you were reading this thread and was hoping that you were.

Kuya, I love you, too, and did even when you were a scary panther who had me totally intimidated! I needed the tough love you were dishing out so maybe I'm glad you hadn't yet been exposed to the 3Ps :wink:.

I just read over the thread that's been causing all the hullabaloo on MWO from a 3Ps perspective (definitely a non-3P, cognitive exercise, but it was interesting). Some posts were written by people who were feeling angry or hurt or scared and others by people who were feeling more neutral or even of higher mood. Some of the posts are hard to understand unless you realize the people are writing from their feelings that arise from their thinking - about the previous posts and from past experience. Each person truly is having a separate experience of that thread, based on their thinking. The one thing that seemed really clear to me though, is that what each person wrote made sense to them at the time they wrote it. Even when it doesn't look that way, people are usually doing the best they can.

[kuya]

Well I love you Kuya! Greetings all. The discussion and info here is real useful. I'm currently putting together the 7th Chakra principles. The 7th chakra is located at the crown in yer scone. I am interested in whether slightly thinning hair in the region opens up the chakra to divine energy any more than usual. My research is ongoing and I expect a paper to be published (pending funding) around 2020. Aside from that, keep the convo rolling!

LOLOL....I will fund your research Gman!

Glad you are reading...knowledge is power! I think there are many practices that help, depending on the individual and their personality and taste.

NS ... The cougar persona isn't gone and I still charge like a bull if need be BUT, as you said, you start seeing that usually people ARE being honest, they are simply stating their own reality as they see it.

3Ps simply makes me more aware of how hard it is, in a complex society, for people from extremely divergent cultures to converse in a meaningful way.

Even here...it is written in English...but our cultures create a gulf of differences that make misunderstanding and offence so easy.

You refer to that thread with Gilf....classic example.....Gilf is Irish, whose culture is not actually English per Se (but close enough) but is being judged by people from the USA and Canada for whom Gilf implies a desire to be approached for sex rather than a statement of power ("I may be an older woman but I am not over the hill yet")

Instead of the two groups realising there is a miscommunication there is an assumption of lack of care...on both sides.

The poem I wrote was an attempt to show how EVERYBODY simply wants love and understanding.....

[kuya]

I want this tattooed on me !


Even when it doesn't look that way, people are usually doing the best they can.


Thanks NS

[NoSugar]

Where are you gonna put such a long quote :wink:?

The link below is to a (long) chat with some people who run a 3Ps addiction treatment center - I think it might be the one Hoping said she attended.

There are some interesting comments and one thing that really struck me was they don't encourage clients to become immersed in their own (ego-driven) addiction stories. Thinking about them generally leads to bad feelings that mask the light within. That's all the past and the point is to uncover and return to innate health.

100 Krista & Reed Smith - Principles of Recovery - YouTube

[kuya]

Where are you gonna put such a long quote :wink:?

The link below is to a (long) chat with some people who run a 3Ps addiction treatment center - I think it might be the one Hoping said she attended.

There are some interesting comments and one thing that really struck me was they don't encourage clients to become immersed in their own (ego-driven) addiction stories. Thinking about them generally leads to bad feelings that mask the light within. That's all the past and the point is to uncover and return to innate health.

100 Krista & Reed Smith - Principles of Recovery - YouTube

Really enjoyed this. I am now subscribed and will be trying to watch their stuff.

Which brings me to another point that was raised earlier in this thread...'why isn't 3Ps more mainstream?'

I think this talk addresses that so well. You can tap someone on the shoulder and say 'hey, look at this' but it is not for any of us to batter others with this.

It is NOT a religion, it is an understanding. Whether you 'get it' now or later (or never) doesn't change the authenticity.

I hope there are people following this thread that are enjoying benefits from it, maybe for some it may help them recover from their addictions BUT I do not need to convince anybody.

It is what is.

[bear73]

thanks Kuya,getting a lot from this thread - Starty thanks for sharing will have a read through later

[NoSugar]

"Whether you 'get it' now or later (or never) doesn't change the authenticity."

Can't give the credit b/c I don't remember where I heard this analogy but the point was that we've been using our digestive system since birth - food goes in, stuff happens, and poop comes out. Some of us at some point learned about that unseen business in our stomach and intestinal tract during high school or college. It may have been interesting to know about, but it didn't change how it worked and for all those people who have never known or cared to know how the digestive system works - it still does!

In my case, I would take the (imperfect) analogy a step further. It was apparent many years ago that my digestive health could be better. Learning how my system worked allowed me to recognize what was causing the problems and make some dietary changes that yielded great improvements. If I hadn't understood how it worked, I'd still be causing problems for myself and suffering.

[NoSugar]

Today's Michael Neill talk again relates to some of the recent discussion:
Day 23 - The Principle of Thought - YouTube

[kuya]

TESTIMONIALS FROM PEOPLE AFTER 3Ps REHAB

I was watching these earlier today and they made me smile and cry at the same time.

This new understanding has been so profound for me that I actually felt a little jealous that these guys got to do this every day for weeks in a beautiful setting with skilled and loving people.

ANY LURKERS OUT THERE NEEDING REHAB.....CHECK OUT THIS PLACE FIRST !!

Gulf Breeze Recovery-Video Testimonials

[lifechange]

This is my biggest "struggle", Kuya! What you said...

I still struggle with hurt feelings but am starting to see them differently as well...I SO need to be loved that I am far too affected by the casual neglect that is really routine behaviour by many people.


I'm beginning to feel short periods of release from this need.. I get glimpses of how it "can" be and it is amazing.. to be able to accept what I'm given (also not so easy for me) and to genuinely feel and know that that is enough.