Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott on the outskirts of Exeter in a tiny little park.
It's a beautiful park with lots of trees,
It's got a children's play area.
I'm in a bit of an island of traffic so you can probably hear the cars going by.
There are dog walkers,
There's a seagull strutting along the grass,
I've seen grey squirrels scuttle up the trees.
The park is alive even though it's an early early time in the day and as you know over the last five days we've been exploring the three principles.
It's a conversation I started and didn't intend to kind of go into so much depth but that seems to be the way it's going and over the last two days we've explored two of the three principles and I want to talk about the final one today.
So the three principles as articulated by Sidney Banks are the principle of mind,
The principle of thought and the principle of consciousness.
The principle of mind as we looked at a couple of days ago signifies the intelligence behind life.
The principle of thought is the principle that explains how we interpret the world around us,
How we think to the future,
How we recreate memories from the past,
How we plan,
How we organise,
How we dream,
How we imagine.
The principle of thought is key to us being human as is the principle of mind and as is the principle that we're going to talk about today which is the principle of consciousness.
So consciousness,
The principle of consciousness is as I see it the backdrop or the awareness,
The I am-ness,
The presence of being human.
As we looked at a couple of days ago these three principles are actually all made of the same stuff,
They all come from the same energy.
It's not like they are three distinct things.
So in a way for me consciousness is a blend of how I see mind.
Consciousness is what brings alive thought as a human being.
So when I imagine something,
I don't know,
Something maybe that's a bit worrying for me,
I'm imagining I've got to go on a train journey and what if my train is late and what if they don't have water on the train and what if and what if.
So the principle of thought is imagining that scenario and then the principle of consciousness brings it alive and real into my imagining.
So it no longer feels like something out there,
I'm actually having a felt experience of the thinking and thought that I'm going through.
So consciousness brings things alive and the principle and the divine principle and divine consciousness is that deeper awareness to life and as I see it consciousness is the part of me that can shine a light on the confusion of thought and thinking or it can shine a light on the intuitive intelligence of mind.
It has this agency to move between the two or to shine a light between the two and so for me that's what I take consciousness to be.
It brings alive thought and it also has a capacity to bring alive intuitive wisdom and as you know that's what I call my inner compass.
So it can point in either direction.
So consciousness is that sense of knowing,
It is that I am-ness.
For me it's the real unifying principle,
It's the connector that has us all connected.
So today we've been looking at the principle of consciousness and tomorrow I just want to do a little wrap-up because just understanding or knowing the names of mind,
Consciousness and thought really doesn't make a difference.
In fact it can be,
I found it quite confusing when I first came across the three principles.
So tomorrow I want to explain what they mean for me and what the three principles bring alive for me.
It's the so what of the three principles and we'll look at that tomorrow.
