Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sydney Banks

Mr. Sydney Banks, author, philosopher, lecturer, father, husband, mystic, passed away in the morning, Memorial Day, May 25.

Mr. Banks' life and work demonstrated that an ordinary, uneducated person has access to unlimited reservoirs of Love and Intelligence.

In my own life, he showed me that what I thought was real, was not. And that this "boring old world" was full of mystery and miracle. What personal contact I had with him always brought great leaps of understanding and opened new realms for me of feeling and gratitude. Sometimes, in his presence, the world would tremble and wobble in my peripheral vision, & a great openness would happen within, a Spirit, a feeling, boundless in its magnitude--almost frightening--would descend. Then, it would be gone as quickly as it had come. Leaving a sense of promise of more to come ...

Mr. Banks was inordinately generous with his knowledge when he felt that someone sincerely wanted to learn. And his simple, workaday approach to mystical knowledge, his emphasis on "plain" positivity, hope and human kindness made an end to suffering possible for so many thousands of people--from professionals to inmates to young children.

It was always Mr. Banks' hope that the great helping fields of psychology and psychiatry--which nobly work to alleviate the world's suffering--would finally come to see the logic of his Divine principles: Mind, Consciousness and Thought. We experience what we think. And there is so much more in us than we know.

For more information, please see Mr. Banks' website at sydneybanks.org, or see any of his many books, including: The Missing Link: Reflections on Philosophy & Spirit, The Enlightened Gardener, The Enlightened Gardener Revisited, Dear Liza, and etc. Audiovisuals (DVD's, etc.) are at www.lonepinepublishing.com ... (Click on Self-Help or Psychology.)

Goodbye, Syd!

And Thank You.

I wish I'd had more time with you ...

5 comments:

Jeff McMahon said...

Very sorry to hear it, although certainly he did not think death regrettable. I've heard you talk about him for many years.

Ami Chen Mills-Naim said...

"The moment of death is the happiest moment of your life."

--Sydney Banks, conversation

"When you die, you go Home. I guarantee you, you go Home to God ... to the Energy of All Things."

--Sydney Banks, The Hawaii Lectures, (Lone Pine Publishing)

Unknown said...

Alright, I’m going to write here what I “just” saw, but I want to preface it with, “I can’t see what I don’t know" so this is a very limited view. For example, picture yourself sitting in a room the size of all the universes in the existence of form and a light flicking on for a millionth part of a second.

Here Goes: Imagine sitting in a world where there are no “senses”. That means that there is no light, sound, touch, feel, taste, etc. I’ll use the picture of an infinite-sized movie theater. In this theater, everyone and everything that ever has or ever will enter history (the world of form / the physical world) is there with you. As a matter of fact they are part of you.

This “senseless” world of “formlessness” is similar to an infinite ocean in the sense that there is no separation / space and that everything that enters the world of form always remains a “droplet” within the “formless” ocean.

One gift of the formlessness is that instantaneously (infinity) a big bang takes place via the principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. In that moment, an entire experience is created for the droplets within formlessness. In the next moment, another big bang, then another big bang, etc. Each big bang is an individual unique experience for the droplets within the ocean.

Picture a strobe light that is pulsating so quickly that it looks like a solid beam of light. This is like the illusion that human experience is fluid instead of an infinite amount of “big bangs” taking place via Mind, Consciousness, and Thought at an inconceivable rate of speed.

Now, Mind, Consciousness, and Thought IS formless. More accurately, it is Minthousciousness (I made it up meaning 1). Mind, Consciousness, and Thought IS “Formlessness”.

After the big bang we have human experience. Anything after the big bang is effect. It is a finished product. It is complete and unchangeable. It is anything and everything that we can experience through our 5 senses. It is part of the instantaneous big bang. It is a poor reflection or reproduction of formlessness.

All concepts and I mean all concepts, pictures and thoughts are a distorted reflection. The best reflections may be deemed to represent the "nature" of formlessness. For example, The Desert = No 5 Senses. Tranquility = No 5 Senses. Love = Formlessness. No Mind = Formlessness. Oneness = Formlessness.

The key in life is to awaken within formlessness which is where we have been for all eternity. The path to waking is a lack of interest in taking the compound (form) of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought as “reality”. To visit Home (Insight), and then realize that we are all living a dream…Enjoy, wake up, and then create with Knowing!

Who I am within formlessness never changed as I wrote this. My experience of who I am in the world of form never stayed the same. There is nothing within form that is not part of the illusion.

Nick Lee

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ami Chen Mills-Naim said...

Wow, Lewis, or Nick ... Wow.