Only a Second Away

Best-version transcript — the human transcription refined against a word-timed machine transcript of the cleaned audio. Spotted an error? Corrections are welcome.

You know, it truly is a pleasure to see you people because Reece has told me so much about the staff here and the wonderful job they’re doing and helping people in trouble and when I come here, though, there’s the strangest feeling because I don’t know who’s staff and who’s learning here! [laughter] and as you start to find out by reading the books and listening to your trainers, the reality you live in is truly created from your own thoughts.

No matter what anybody says in this world, it’s a world of thought. We live in a psychological experience from the cradle to the grave and whatever that experience is, it’s created from what you call Mind, Consciousness and Thought. These are the three principles that create all reality here on earth. Now, a lot of people have different backgrounds, some are wealthy, some are poor, some have had hardships and some haven’t but, truly, listen to me, that is immaterial, what your background was. It’s what you are now.

The happiness you’re looking for is inside you, it really is. That’s where mental health lies. Nobody in this world is perfect and whatever happened to you as a child that was negative, immaterial of what it is, it is now only an illusion in time carried from your own thoughts. You’ve carried it through time, it’s been your reality, you remember it and you keep remembering it, you keep bringing it up and it becomes your reality every day. Now if you can see it’s a world of thought and you can see that all the past no longer exists, it’s only in your head as a memory and a memory is only a thought. If you can honestly see that, you know what happens, it dies a sudden death and you’re brought into the now and this is why all the sages and the wise throughout time have always talked about the importance of living in the now. You’ll hear people say it takes years of devotion, years of going through anguish to try and find what you call truth. That is the biggest fallacy in this world. Everybody, everybody is only one thought away from whatever you’re looking for. If you can find that one thought and that one thought, do you know what it is? It’s the state of thoughtlessness. Thoughtlessness from the little personal mind.

This is why people meditate. The second your mind quietens down, what you call divine mind, spiritual mind, spiritual intelligence, spiritual knowledge, true knowledge, they’re all the same thing in different names, comes into being and you get what you call an insight. That is a sight from within, deep past your personal mind, and all of a sudden your world changes and the past starts to disappear. It starts to become of no longer any value, it has no longer any control over you because you could sit here till hell freezes over and say the past is not controlling me. I’ll bet you it is. I’ll bet it is but who is really the controller? It’s you. You use the past and it destroys the present, because if you’re always in negative feelings, negative memories, sad memories, poor me’s, all these kind of negative thoughts, they’re controlling you and you know how I’ve gone to places and before you even get in a person will say, you know, almost with great pride, I’m an alcoholic, I’m a drug addict, I’ve been in jail, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. Well, innocently, they’re keeping themselves a prisoner. These are the thoughts, the prison bars that hold them prisoner of the past.

Now if you can walk up and say I am not an alcoholic and forget the rest of your life, nobody cares really in reality what you did in the past. If you’re looking at somebody and I see a beautiful person like you or you or you or anybody in this hall, I don’t care what they’ve done in the past and nobody else does. Always start afresh. I mean, let’s face it, if you were in a restaurant and you get introduced to somebody, you wouldn’t say, My name’s Joe Bloggs, I have haemorrhoids [laughter]. You know, nobody cares. It doesn’t make any difference. Just be you.

Honestly, throughout the world there’s people getting in trouble all the time and if you’re lucky enough not to be in trouble, never mind what your past was, if you’re not in trouble now, you can say, no, there but for the grace of God go I, and you know what it does? It gives you a nice feeling and that’s what you’re looking for. There isn’t one human being in this world that’s not looking for nice feelings. They want to be loved, they want to be wanted, they want to love people, they want to care, they want people to care for them and if you find those beautiful feelings and you start caring for other people, loving other people, understanding other people and not getting all judgmental as much as possible, this brings you a nice feeling and that’s the important thing, because you can’t get a nice feeling from somebody else. The nice feeling has to be inside you and if you can take all those negative thoughts away and get nice feelings, you’ll start living a healthy, happy life. It’s that simple and people say, no, it’s not that simple. As soon as you say it’s not that simple, you’ve made it complicated. Never, never, never put yourself down. There’s nobody sitting in this place right now that’s any better or any worse than anybody else and if you can see that, that’s where you’ll find pride and joy and just a loving life. It’s just become neutral.

That’s why the sages in the past, they all talked from the impersonal. They never talked personal, otherwise I’m saying to you, what did you do that was wrong, what did you do that was wrong, what did you do that was wrong, and ask you all these negative questions and that’s not where truth is. You’ve got to be impersonal and the impersonal is a spiritual knowledge before the contamination of human thought. You have to go before time, space and matter.

I know as I’m talking now, some of you might be saying, look, I’m not getting this. Well, I’ll guarantee you, guarantee you, if you’re getting a nice feeling, you’re getting it. You will never, never, never, never intellectually understand it. Can’t be done, because we’re talking about something before form and anything before form, how can you understand it? You can’t, because it has no form. You can’t touch it, you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, your five senses are totally useless against what you call wisdom and that’s what wisdom is, is that knowledge before the true you, the inside you, the beautiful you that was born, was damaged and who damages it, it’s not the outside world, honestly it’s not, it’s you yourself via your own thoughts and if you get a nice feeling today, you’re getting it.

I know that one young lady came up to me this morning and started telling me an incredible story and you could see that she was just full of caring, that she had found something beautiful and she was saying how wonderful the staff was and how wonderful this place was. Well, another person could come in here and say, I don’t like the staff, I don’t like the place, I don’t like being here. Now, the staff hasn’t changed, the building hasn’t changed, it’s only the way you think and you might say, well, it’s different for me, because she hasn’t gone through what I’ve gone through. It doesn’t matter, it’s still thought. Thought is a magical paintbrush that paints the reality you see.

One thought away lies happiness. From sadness to happiness is only one thought away. From happiness to sadness is only one thought away. From anger, from understanding is only thought away and the next time you’re going to get angry or wild at somebody, stop and just think, just for a few seconds, is this my thoughts creating this anger or is it really what I see and I’ll bet you a dollar to your doughnut, it’s your thoughts. Your thoughts control you. If you go out here and you look for a job and you don’t have any will to really find one because you’ve lost your will to sort of enjoy life and you go out, you’ll never find that job, because, no matter what job you get, no matter what it is, it will not be the right job, but if you go out here with a proper attitude that to see life all over again, you’ll be surprised how magical that can be. Absolutely magical.

Speaker: I just want to talk about how if you say, poor me, poor me all your life and if you think about the past because that’s what I’ve been doing all my life. I feel like I’m gonna cry but, I like, I relate to it so much, you know, because all my life, I’ve been saying, poor me, poor me, you know, I’ve been thinking about my past and I’ve been letting my past just, you know, hold me down and not let me go any further and I’m not doing it no more. You know, I’m not saying poor me no more, I’m happy because, I’m happy though, I’m crying because I’ve got all these feelings inside of me, but that’s what I’ve been doing all my life, you know, you’ve done this, your life is so messed up, you know, you don’t, poor you, I’m doing that. But, today I’m not doing that no more and I’m just so glad to be here and thanks for coming a lot…

Sydney: Thank you.

Speaker: Because I understand a lot of what you’re saying.

Sydney: It’s just a feeling isn’t it?

Speaker: Yeah, a lot and thank you. That’s all.

Isn’t that amazing you don’t have to understand, it’s a feeling that comes out in you but…

I remember once, I’m talking about two hundred people, and this woman gets up and she says, Mr Banks, I don’t have a damn clue what you’ve been saying, and I said, well, that’s good, and she says, what do you mean it’s good? I don’t understand what you’re saying. I said, well, what do you feel like? She says, I feel great, that’s the funny thing about it. I says, well, you’re getting it. And she wanted to argue with me and I thought, wait a minute, and I said to the whole crowd, would anybody in this hall that really understands what’s being said, please put your hand up. There was one hand went up and that one person argued with me all night. [laughter].

Now, it’s just a feeling. Your thoughts lead to your feelings. Your feelings lead to your habits, and your habits lead to your character. Go back to where they started, change it to positive and all the way down the line it will change. It will change your character and everything else. It’s a self-created world, it really is, and if you ever think to yourself, my God, I’ve blown it, look what I’ve done for years, I’ve hurt myself, you’re back in it again. That’s the ego saying, don’t leave me, you know, don’t leave me, keep it the way it is, you don’t do that. If you find yourself getting into that, thinking that way again, start to realise, no way, that’s only my thoughts again and the same old trip, forget it and you start to free yourself.

Please, if there’s any more questions or if anybody like to say something, I’d love to hear stories.

Speaker two: I have a couple of questions. I always thought that we gained wisdom from our past experiences and mistakes, ok, so that’s kind of the way I grew up and the way I’ve thought up until this point, as well as I’m a real positive, I’m a positive type person and a positive thinker and I believe in positive mental attitude and all of that. When I meditate, a lot of my past will come up and I have to keep pushing it away and pushing it away and it gets better every time I push it away, but when does it ever totally go away? Or will it go away?

Sydney: Don’t try and fight it, because you’re fighting an ego, you’re fighting yourself. The ego is you and you start fighting your ego, you’re fighting yourself, you get yourself confused. Just see that all it is, these thoughts are coming up again. All they are are thoughts, try and draw the thoughts. Now, somebody might come along and say, you’re going into denial. Believe me, you’re not, you’re fighting it. The best thing to do is, this is the proper way to fight is, is just to ignore it. But if you keep bringing it up, you stay the way you are from now till the day you die. Just stick to Thought, stick to Consciousness, stick to your Mind, stick to the spiritual part of life, because Mind, Consciousness and Thought, there is nothing in this world more spiritual than those three principles. Nothing. Because in actual fact, Divine Mind, Divine Consciousness and Divine Thought are really all one thing with the trinity to all psychological experience here on earth. That’s where you’ll find the freedom.

Speaker three: Mr Banks, for a long time, I always thought I was a real positive person but in the inside, I was dying inside with negative thinking and I always wanted to find that spiritual awakening and I did, I thought, but it still didn’t lift all these thoughts out of my mind and I always thought it was some subconscious thought that just ate at me all the time and I just didn’t know how to … I always thought I had to react on everything I thought about, I had to respond to it, I had to make something happen from it, to get rid of it and when I read your books, it was actually, I find myself always trying to keep busy so I wouldn’t get into these thoughts and a young lady told me she read these books and she was like, I’m not going to let you go, because I can see that you are looking for something and I think you might just find it and she mentioned the book two days in a row and on the third day I picked them up and I couldn’t put it down. Thought I was getting get rode up for having my night light on at five in the morning and I just couldn’t put them down, I read and I read and I read and then there was areas that were just so healing and so enlightening for me and today, I apply that, you know. My mum is a big inspiration in my life and she just, one of my biggest things was my children, my separation from my children and I just could not stop wallowing in that pity, in that feeling that I couldn’t regain what I lost and everything and I just finally, I said it’s just a thought, if I keep feeling that I’ll never have them, that’s exactly what I’ll get and I had to spend an hour, not this past Sunday but the Sunday before, just crying the whole first hour they were there, listening to them have a conversation as young adults at my mum present there. I didn’t know if I was going to find words and I had all the fear and all these thoughts came to my head. What do I say, how do I act, what do I do, and it finally dawned on me what I read in your books and I was able to talk and find the words and now there’s nothing I can’t face, because I know that if I feel something, it’s a thought that’s relating to the feeling and I owe that to you and I really mean that from the bottom of my heart and today is like a really special day for me, because I did not know you were coming and I did not plan on ever being able to share with the person that actually gave me some insight, and I’m just, I mean the Lord just works in miracles for me, today, because you did change the way I feel about myself and the way I think about myself. You’re an inspiration to me and I’m just grateful that you’re here and I thank you for coming.

Sydney: Thank you. My advice is, you’re going to try and start a new life, forget the old. Just forget it. Let it die, it’s dead already, anyway, it’s gone. What you did yesterday is gone, and just get a positive attitude, go out there in life and just keep heading straight all the time and positivity and if you see other people in the same trouble that you used to be in, then you turn round and you feel sorry for them, empathy and maybe you go and help them and the most important thing is, then you would find a feeling of gratefulness that you’re no longer going through that.

I know, that’s, for me that’s what that is. If I see people suffering like I used to, I really feel sorry for them, because I know they’re going through hell, but the great thing is, I also know that they’re only one thought away from finding happiness. So please, if anybody wants to take you back in the past, it’s up to you, but I’d think about it very, very carefully. Am I going to get anything going back into the past, into the hellhole where I used to be, with all the problems I used to have, all the bad feelings I had, all the sorrows I had? Is this going to do me any good, or should I just drop it and say, never mind that, what about now? And that’s why the sages and the wise all talked about the power of the now, and now is the most perfect time there is. If you can learn to … The more you learn to live in the now, the more you’re throwing away all that garbage that used to get you in trouble, all those negative thoughts and negative memories, it’s like a monkey on your back and it weighs you down, so once you start to realise all they are are thoughts, you just dust them off. Say no, they’re just thoughts, I don’t want it. I’m free. Then you’ll come into the now and you see with a clear mind, you see a different reality. You find your freedom and you never know what life is going to do for you. Once you get into that positive state, life has a way of pulling tricks on you and presenting you with things that you never thought possible.

We have a video, I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not. This lady, she lived on the streets for thirty years. That’s a long time to live on the streets. And she was into everything, and she had a bad habit and she would do anything to get what she wanted for her habit. Now she lived like this for thirty years and she called herself the predator and she’s talking away and she says, I was a predator for thirty years, where I was one of those people that heard just like that. Just like that, she says. Within half an hour, she heard something and that was it. Her whole life changed from that moment on. She was off the streets, off everything else, healed and became a therapist herself. What you’re looking for is only a second away. Everything derives from a formless spiritual energy. When it turns into the form, it’s still that spiritual formless energy but it’s turned into your form and it turns into various forms, like it’s turned into you, it’s turned into this tree, it’s turned into the sky, this is where the Indians say everything is spiritual energy, because the tree’s a spirit, the sky is spirit, the ocean is spirit, the fish that swim in it are spirit. Now, if they’re all the same spirit, the same energy, they’re all the same thing in disguise, therefore between one point and another, there is no distance. It’s all an illusion. But it’s an illusion of realities that we have to accept.

See, I’m telling you right now, this world is a ball of energy, well, that’s a metaphor. I’m telling you everything is God in disguise, that’s a metaphor. I’m telling you that you work through something called Divine Mind, Divine Consciousness, Divine Thought, that’s a metaphor, because you can never explain truth. Truth can never be told, touched, seen, tasted, because it has no form and yet the ironic thing is, everything in this world is created from it. The only thing is, it’s in disguise. Take away the disguise and we’re all the same. If you hurt one person, you actually hurt yourself, because everything is one. That’s why if you take a stone and you throw it into the ocean and it makes a ripple, as small as that ripple is and as big as the ocean is, it will change that ocean, because you’ve changed one particle and we’re all one. If you change one, you change everybody.

I thank you very much on behalf of Judy and I and for Rhys for making this possible and I’d say that people coming here are very lucky to have the staff that they have and I’d listen very carefully. Thank you.