The Chair Is Real, but It Comes to You via Thought

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

It’s really very difficult to believe that seventeen years have gone by since I had my realisation and I discovered. It’s very, very, very difficult for me to try and convince people that I actually found the secret of mind, the secret of psychology, and how it’s related to the spiritual teachings of the world. I see how many people that are involved in this field avoided it like the plague even though they knew it worked. There have all been different types of people. There’ve been the people who are very, very excited about what I was saying, who listened and heard as much as they could and gave it to their patients and their patients got well. There’s the other type of person who jumped on the bandwagon trying to create a name for themselves or financial gain. These are the people who truly, truly people who lost it; this was the type of person who was involved in their ego, as I say trying to make a name for themselves.

Those were the people who weren’t really interested in helping humanity. They were only interested in helping themselves. Those are the people who weren’t really interested in helping humanity. They were only interested in helping themselves. I’m sorry to say I’ve met many, many of those people; however, that’s the way it is and nobody can change that. It is also extraordinarily difficult for me to believe that even though people saw the results, they still avoided it. This is why I had to go into writing fictitious books. It wasn’t to write fictitious books. It was the only way I could get the truth out because it was being held back by this extraordinarily ironic that to get help out you’ve got to bypass the people in the helping field and go straight to the public. This is the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I wanted to honestly help the profession, but then I found out it was almost impossible to do because the way it was all set up.

You know I’ve met a lot of people, a lot of people that either belong to or used to belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. This is an organisation that’s incredible. It helps a lot of human beings but it’s stuck, and it’s gone away from the spiritual beliefs they originally had. It’s lost. It’s like everything else: it gets lost in time. However, you can always reverse that, and believe it or not the way you reverse it is look within yourself, look within your own consciousness to your common sense. Here’s the answer: it’s common sense, plain ordinary, everyday, common sense. I talk to many people about this from different organisations that are in the helping field, and they turn round and they’ll say, “I don’t want common sense I want an answer.” Well, believe me, this is the answer: common sense. It’s too simple I’m told. People won’t believe it, but the people who say that they are the non-believers because they’re not looking. As I say, I honestly say that I don’t want anybody to believe me.

If anybody believes me blindly, then they’re puppets. They’re of no value to anybody in the world; they’re puppets. I don’t want you to believe. I want you to look. Look and use your own common sense. Listen to what’s being said. There are a million different excuses why people won’t listen, and if you listen to those excuses they don’t hold water. When I first started to write Second Chance, I felt a little bit bad at the beginning because the last thing in the world I wanted to do was bypass the therapists that were coming to listen, but I had no other choice and I’m really glad I did now because since then I’ve literally had hundreds and hundreds of letters from therapists, from doctors, from ordinary people saying their lives have changed since reading the book because I was given and in return I’d like to help others. You see what you’re actually looking for is a feeling, and as I say my late wife Barbara and I we devoted our entire lives to helping people, but when we saw the help there it gave us a beautiful feeling and that’s what it’s all about. If you can go through life with a good feeling that’s what you call mental health.

When you have a bad feeling, then you have a problem and you have to get rid of that bad feeling, and that bad feeling believe it or not all it is, is thought. Once you realise this and the thoughts disappear, good feeling comes and once again you’re stable and healthy. You’ll be a far, far better person in every way, and this is what psychology’s been looking for since beginning of time as an answer to try and help people who are suffering. It’s almost like you get condemned for helping and this really shocked Barb and me when this first started to happen. When therapists would scream at us about what we were doing because it was working because it wasn’t something they were used to. I remember one psychologist coming to me and saying, “You know, Syd, when I first graduated and I was handed my diploma, I went outside and I had tears in my eyes, tears of sadness,” because he honestly knew he didn’t really know anything about mental health. All his teachings had all been in vain. However, he said, “After listening to you and Barb, I now know that I have something that can help humanity and I’d sooner help my patients over and over again.” And again he was condemned because of the positive results. He was condemned.

Now to me this is disgusting. It just doesn’t make sense. Somebody somewhere along the line isn’t looking at the fact, and if you see something that works, look at it and be honest and say “It’s working. I should listen.” And somewhere along the line if you hear, you won’t be hearing the words of Syd Banks or anybody else. You’ll be hearing a little voice within yourself saying, “This is right. This feels good,” and again we’re back to that feeling. As long as you get that incredible beautiful feeling, you know you’re on the right path. On the other hand if you walk away from your work with a real bad feeling, that you’re not helping anybody, then that’s the feeling you’ll take home with you. If you’re working and you think what you’re doing is futile, it’s all in vain. Then again, you’re going to get that bad feeling, and that’s really quite natural. If you’re flogging a dead horse day after day and seeing no results then that’s a pretty gruesome thing to look at.

But how beautiful it is to even imagine, just imagine that there is a cure, then someday you can go to the office and when you walk home you know you’ve really helped some human beings. Then you’ll take that good feeling home with you. That good feeling is yours. It’s yours. You earned it. That’s what you earned that day is a good feeling and take it home. You take it to your children; you take it to your wife. That’s what life is about. It’s trying to spread good feelings. Not bad feelings like the Freudians do: take you back into all that nonsense or rubbish. They take you back into the sickness. This is where you’ve got to be very, very careful. You’re trying to give away good feelings, good feelings bring mental stability. They bring mental stability. That’s all I’m saying. All I’m asking is that you look at this, not avoid it, and be honest with yourself, and if you’re being honest with yourself again you’ll have that good feeling. So, please look at it. Well, I guess that’s about all for now. Again, I’d like to thank you for everything. All the best.

Quite a few people have informed me lately, that there starting to write text books on the new philosophy they have on life regarding the psychology of mind. I think this is really beautiful and also a few doctors and therapists have asked me to talk on psychology of the mind. Well I know I know it’s been picked up in many, many different ways and this is really quite natural, but again

The way I see it there are three basic things: mind, consciousness, and thought. Some have expressed concern trying to relate to what is called mind. To be truthful with you, you don’t really have to worry about it. What I am relating to as mind is Master mind, a Universal Intelligence. So you don’t really have to worry about it. Just be grateful it’s there. Then there are two other things left: consciousness and thought. Using this understanding, many therapists and doctors and helping professionals have found incredible results working with consciousness and thought. Truly, since I first started associating with psychologists and therapists, I’ve always said you are far, far greater to talk what you know than to talk other people’s philosophy and really know nothing of what you are saying.

Psychologically, if you think of it, there is nothing in the world that can come to pass without thought and consciousness. There is no mental sickness you can have, no mental breakdown. There are no bad thoughts, no good thoughts. In actual fact, there would be no reality without consciousness and thought. Consciousness gives our five senses the ability to react to life: our seeing, our smelling, our touching, etc. This is what brings it into life. But it can’t come in by itself. It has to have a thought. Therefore, it’s an individual’s thought coupled with consciousness that creates reality. Now remember, simply thought. Our thoughts in turn create our character, our behaviour, and the behaviour of all of humanity. Regardless of whether we think negative or positive, it’s immaterial. This is not a judgment. It is still your thoughts, coupling with consciousness, that create your reality. If you agree with what I’m saying, it is your thoughts coupled with consciousness. If you disagree, it’s still the same. No matter whom you disagree with or who you agree with. No matter if your thoughts are negative or positive. I’m not judging. I’m not judging humanity. What I am saying is it is all brought about via thought. I said this to someone once and they said, “Are you telling me that chair isn’t real? That it’s only a thought?” I said, “Of course the chair is real, but it comes to you via thought.”

Here is where a vast, vast difference occurs. Many therapists and others take the individual minds and they start to analyse the minds. They start to analyse people’s behaviours. This has been a natural thing, but it’s not the way to finding the secret of consciousness and thought. Why? Because if there are six billion people on earth and each person has their own thoughts, imagine how many trillions and trillions and trillions of thoughts there are. That is an investigation into never-never land. What we have to do is not investigate everybody’s thoughts. We must find out the true meaning of thought, singular. Thought. It’s a Principle. It can never change. It’s humanity that uses thought for our own way of thinking. But thought is unchangeable. It’s a Principle. Without thought, there would be no such thing as reality here on earth for any human being.

Consciousness. Therapists, psychologists, and helping professionals talk about your consciousness. But again, each person has their own consciousness. And again, there are trillions of different ideas and realities and levels. So you’re not looking for that. You’re not looking for the personal. You’re looking for the impersonal. Pure consciousness can’t change. It’s a Principle. Pure consciousness has no form. It just is. We use consciousness for daily living. But sometimes we use it unwisely and create bad experience and bad behaviour. Then, we investigate into the bad experience and bad behaviour and miss the point altogether. Again, you must look at the singular, consciousness. Therefore, we look to the singular true meaning of thought, the singular true meaning of consciousness, and the singular true meaning of mind. But if we investigate into all the minds with many, many experts trying to figure them out, we never can. Because there are billions of people each with their changing personal little mind systems or personal little thought systems and an infinite amount of ideas. Again, this is no good.

Take the basic Principle and look for the true meaning of mind. One mind. One consciousness. One thought. If any one of those disappears, there is no reality. You must have a thought to take consciousness and turn it into life for you. And there can’t be consciousness without Universal Intelligence, mind, creating consciousness. Truly, sometimes you should learn to walk before you can leap. If you understand to a greater extent the connection between thought and consciousness and behaviour, then you will see this connection can help a lot of human beings. These three basic Principles cannot be explained. They can only be explained as a metaphor. Being explained in this way, it throws you off the scent, so to speak. Let me give you an example of this. Imagine someone that doesn’t know anything whatsoever about electricity. They have never seen electricity before in their life. They walk into a home and they see an electric light bulb and they ask, “What is that?” A person says, “That’s an electric light bulb and it is run by electricity.” Then they look at the iron and it’s run by electricity and it’s the same with the fan. But they still are not getting an explanation of what electricity is. They are getting an explanation of what it can do. So the person says, “Okay, I’m going to investigate, and I’m going to find out what this electricity is.”

So naturally, what they would do is they would go down to the plug and take a screwdriver and take it apart and look at the plug. They would see the wires and figure out it runs through the wires. They trace the wires through the house and they go to the main box. Their search could go on and on forever. But no matter how hard they investigate they are not finding out what electricity is. They are finding out what you can do with it, what it creates, what it allows us to do in life. This is the same with the three basic Principles. At first it may seem that since negative thought creates all our hellish, nightmarish emotions and problems, all we have to do is reverse our thoughts to positive. But this isn’t true. It’s not just merely changing thought content. It’s changing our level of understanding via thought, via a deeper level of consciousness.

I’m going to say it as—the way I see it is there’s three basic things mind, consciousness, and thought. Now a few have expressed concern trying to relate to what is called mind. Well, to be truthful with you, you don’t have to worry about it because what I’m relating to as mind that is massive mind; it’s a universal intelligence, so you don’t really have to worry about it. You just be grateful that it’s there. So there’re two other things left. That’s consciousness and thought.

And you know it yourself that many of you therapists and doctors, etc., have found incredible results working what you call consciousness and thought, and truly for the past seventeen years since I first started associating with psychologists and therapists, I’ve always said, “You’re far, far greater to talk about what you know than to talk about other people’s philosophy and really know nothing of what you’re saying.” You see psychology, when you think of it there is nothing in this world can come to pass without thought and consciousness. There is no mental sickness you can have, no mental breakdown; there’re no bad thoughts. Good thoughts. In actual fact, there’d be no reality without consciousness and thought. Because consciousness gives our five senses the ability to react to life: our seeing, our smelling, our touching, etc. This is what brings it into life.

It can’t come in by itself. It has to have a thought, so it’s the individual’s thought coupled with consciousness that creates reality. Now remember, these thoughts in turn create our character and our behaviour and the behaviour of humanity as a whole whether you think negative or positive. It’s immaterial with no judgement. It is still your thoughts coupling with consciousness to create your reality. If you agree with what I’m saying, again, that is your thoughts coupled with consciousness. If you disagree, again, it’s the same, no matter who you disagree with or who you agree with, no matter if your thoughts are negative or positive. I’m not judging. I’m not judging humanity. What I’m saying is it’s brought about by thought.

Now I remember saying that and somebody once said to me, “If you tell me that chair isn’t real it’s only a thought…” Of course the chair is real, but it comes to you via thought. You see this is where a vast, vast difference occurs, many therapies what they do is they take the individual minds and they start to analyse their minds. They start to analyse the behaviour. Well, this is really quite a natural thing but is not the way to finding the secret of consciousness and thought because if there’s X amount of billion people on earth each person has its own thoughts, so you can imagine how many trillions and trillions and trillions of thoughts there are. So that’s an investigation into never-never land. So what you have to do is not investigate everybody’s thought. You find out the true meaning of thought, singular thought. It’s a principle. It can never change. It’s humanity that uses thought for his own way of thinking, but thought is unchangeable. It’s a principle. Without it there’d be no such thing as reality as here on earth for any human being.

Consciousness. Therapists talk about your consciousness. Again each person has their own consciousness, and again there are trillions of different ideas and realities so you’re not looking for that. You’re not looking for the personal; you’re looking for the impersonal. So we say consciousness is a principle. Pure consciousness can’t change. Pure consciousness has no form. It just is. It’s weird. It uses consciousness for daily living, but sometimes it uses it unwisely and it creates bad behaviour. So we investigate into the behaviour and miss the point altogether. You look for the singular consciousness. So, therefore, you look for the singular true meaning of thought, the true meaning of consciousness, and we get to mind. Again, we investigate into all the minds with many, many therapists trying to figure them out, and you never can because once again there’re billions of people with their personal little mind systems or thought systems with infinite amount of ideas so again it’s no good. So once again, you take that basic principle and you seek the true meaning of mind, one mind, one consciousness, and one thought, and if any one of those things disappears there is no reality. You must have a thought to take consciousness and turn into life for you, and there can’t be consciousness without the universal intelligence creating consciousness.

Truly, sometimes you should learn to walk before you can leap, and if you understand to a greater extent the connection between thought and consciousness and your client’s behaviour and you can see that this connection can help a lot of human beings then you’re a lucky person. You know those three basic principles: mind, consciousness, and thought. They can’t be explained. They can only be explained as a metaphor. Being explained in this way, it throws you off the scent so to speak. Let me give you an example of that. Imagine somebody that doesn’t know anything about electricity, has never seen electricity before in his life. He walks into a home and sees an electric light bulb and he asks, “What is that?” And the person says, “It’s an electric light bulb. It’s run by electricity.” And he looks at the iron, its run by electricity and it’s the same with fan, but he’s still not getting an explanation of what electricity is. He’s getting an explanation of what electricity can do so the fellow says, “Ok. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to investigate and I’m going to find out what this electricity this.”

So naturally what he would do is he’d go down to the plug and take a screwdriver and take it apart and look at the plug. Then he’d see the wires and then we would figure out it runs through the wire, to go to the main box and he goes on and on forever and ever, but no matter how he investigates he’s not finding what electricity is. He’s finding out what you can do with it, what it creates, what it allows you to do in life. Well, this is the same with the three basic principles. The simple thing about all this is when you think of it if negative thoughts created all the hellish nightmarish emotions that we had to go through, all the problems, all you have to do is reverse your thoughts to positives. But it’s not just merely changes in thought. It’s changing your level of understanding via thought via a deeper level of consciousness. Because you see investigating into levels of consciousness is endless, you can’t possibly come to the end of it, but if you’re seeking, seeking, and seeking, then you’ll never be satisfied with what you have and this is one of the main things in life: be satisfied with what you have. The happiness will come because satisfaction is happiness and that’s a lot of people with lots of wealth, lots of material things, but they’re unhappy.

All it is, is a thought, and if that thought changes they become grateful, grateful to life because it gives them a feeling of happiness. It doesn’t matter where you are in life. If you can find that feeling of gratefulness, of happiness, of contentment, of love, of understanding others, all those different feelings are what you’re looking for. This is what creates a nicer reality. When a patient comes to you and they’re suffering, they’re saying, “Look doc, please try and change my reality I’m suffering. I’m suffering mentally because, because, because.” They’re looking for help, and I think this is an incredible profession to be able to help people that are suffering and quite often needlessly. So I’ve been really honoured that I’m working with many psychologists and many therapists and nurses and various other people throughout the United States for the last seventeen years. It’s something I’ll never forget. Well, folks that’s about all for now, Thank you.