Janet remarked, “I have many clients who meditate on a regular basis, yet they still have deep mental problems. I often wondered why this is.”
“Do you know, Janet, many people don’t realize there are many levels of meditation?”
With a surprised look on her face, Janet remarked that she never thought there could be different levels of meditation, “I always thought you were in the state of meditation or you weren’t.”
“I’m with you Janet—I’ve never heard anyone describe meditation that way Andy, would you care to elaborate on such a statement?”
“The way I see it, Eric, the state of meditation you are in and the state of consciousness you are in are the same thing, only the words differ to describe the level of thought you are functioning from. However, if you can find out how the Three Principles work, then you can naturally function throughout your life in what some people call a state of meditation without going though the technique of meditating.”
Andy’s explanation of meditation and levels of consciousness being the same really surprised me and again I could see there was more to the Three Principles than Janet and I were aware of. Again, I felt it was necessary to ask Andy if he could explain what he was trying to tell us in a different way.
He answered my question with one of his own. “Why do you think some of your patients are being cured from their mental imbalances and what has happened to both of you that took you to an understanding beyond anything that you were taught in school?”
“I guess it’s because we started to understand the workings of the Three Principles and now we can supply a better explanation to our clients of how mind and consciousness work in daily life,” I answered.
“Exactly,” Andy replied. “Don’t you see that it is because your consciousness has risen to a higher level of understanding that both of you have had such success with your clients? From this new level of understanding, you and your clients have had insights that have allowed you to drop volumes of unnecessary and harmful thought, thereby leaving you with a clearer, more peaceful state of mind.
“Haven’t you told me over and over again how peaceful your minds have become and how all the stress you were having from talking with patients has vanished without sitting and meditating? May I suggest that you have found what you were looking for by acknowledging the power of the Three Principles? Let me also suggest to you that you have gone into a more permanent and higher state of meditation.”
“Wow, I never thought about it that way,” Janet remarked. “So what I hear you say is, we are putting our clients into a higher state of meditation or consciousness by explaining to them how the Three Principles work instead of them having to go through the ritual of meditating. Could this be why all the great mystics throughout time have told us to beware of rituals and dogma as they will lead you away from the truth?”
“That’s exactly what you have been doing. By avoiding the traps of rituals and dogma, your results have shot beyond anything now known in the field. Once your profession sees this for a fact, the old theories you have been taught will completely vanish from the face of this earth. Then there will be healings beyond your wildest imagination.”
Janet looked stunned by Andy’s words and I was bowled over, once again made speechless by what I was hearing. After the longest time, I asked Andy to explain in another way why this knowledge was not well known throughout the world.
“Eric, haven’t I told you before, the principles we are talking about have always existed, yet they are one of the greatest secrets on earth. I doubt very much if many people since the beginning of time have known about them.” Andy smiled at the confused look on my face, rolled back his eyes, shook his head and let out a deep sigh. Then he smiled patiently and said, “Before time, space and matter, we were without form. When we were born into this physical world, our five senses were activated by our use of the three spiritual gifts called Mind, Consciousness and Thought.
“The very moment we enter this world of form, we are immediately misguided by the vision of this
Great Spiritual Illusion called creation. It is with this vision of creation that the delusionary ego is born and where we lose our purity of thought and our true identity.”
“What exactly do you mean when you say we lose our true identity and the purity of thought at birth?” Janet asked.
“This is the way I see it, Janet. At birth, we are innocent babes born into a foreign land, and our eyes see only this divine illusion that we live in.
“That’s why I say to both of you, to find the secret to all human thinking and behavior you will have to reverse the way you think, and instead of concentrating so much on behavior, as Dr. Freud and many others innocently suggested, look for the innate knowledge that we are all blessed with.
“This innate knowledge, sometimes known as wisdom, will not only cure the behavior, but it will also prevent most problems from occurring in the first place.”
“I can see that,” Janet replied. “Gosh, the very thought of there being such an answer gives me goose bumps.”
“Never forget, Luv, I am talking in the Impersonal“
“Andy, I can see that you are talking in complete neutrality and I respect you for that. However, I want to know how we access this knowledge that you keep talking about?”
“Remember, I told you that the knowledge you seek is beyond the word, and beyond our five senses? And, if you look closely at all the words of the wise, you will see that regardless of how they expressed themselves, they all pointed to the fact that what you seek lies within. Another way to say that is, what you seek is innate.
“I am suggesting to you, to find such knowledge you should stop looking and just be,
“For it is in the silent chambers of your mind
Such knowledge is incubated and brought to life.
“Try to be content with what you have, and it may surprise you how the quality of your life could change for the better. Never forget, contentment is a state of being that always comes clothed in a positive feeling. Contentment brings peace of mind and happiness into one’s life.”
Many of the gardener’s theories and ideas were things I had secretly wondered about since I was a little boy, but was always too afraid to ask anyone about. I felt that Andy’s teachings were, to say the least, profound, though totally different from what I was taught or was used to.
I was certainly never taught, nor had I ever thought, that mental health lay inside everyone. Listening to Andy, I suddenly realized what he meant when he said that wisdom was purity of thought. What he was suggesting was that we go back into our subconscious and retrieve our innate wisdom, before it became tainted by our own flawed thoughts and ideas. I asked him how this could possibly be done and he answered, “Again I tell you:
“By using the three magical principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought as purely as you can.”
From my previous experiences of listening to Andy talk I knew that he had a habit of leaving you with a cliffhanger and today he did just that, announcing to Janet and me that he had to go home to meet some people who were coming to his house. Smiling, he said, “But I'll be back in a couple of hours in case you have any more questions.”
When he left, Janet and I once again tried to figure out his unusual philosophy. After intellectually straining our brains for half an hour we finally gave up and burst into peals of laughter at the futility of our endeavoring to understand what we had heard—or indeed, what he had said. To try to quell our racing minds we strolled through the village, sightseeing and shopping. Unexpectedly, my mind was so calm it was as if I were tranquilized, yet everything looked clear-edged and bright and all the vendors seemed particularly friendly