On my spiritual journey through this lifetime, I’ve come to understand that every human is unique and no human is special.
Unique: being the only one; able to be distinguished from all others of its class or type
Special: being in some way superior
Being unique and not special has set me free in so many ways! I’m excited to share this insight with you in the hopes you will find freedom and joy in it as well.
If I don’t have to prove to myself or others that I am special, I am free to be fearlessly myself. And I am free from thinking that I need anyone’s approval. Hey, I can’t control what anyone thinks anyway, so why bother?
Sydney Banks, a Scottish welder, who had a spiritual awakening at the age of 43, has elucidated the Three Principles that describe how we experience life: Mind, Consciousness, and Thought.
“Mind, Consciousness and Thought are spiritual gifts that enable us to see creation and guide us through life.”
Sydney Banks, The Missing Link
Mind is the energy and intelligence behind all life. It is Divine Mind that animates our being. Our ideas and inspirations come from Divine Mind.
Consciousness enables us to be aware of existence. It is our awareness.
Thought is the power of creation.
“Thought is the creative agent we use to direct us through life.”
Sydney Banks, The Missing Link,
All of us are alive because of Divine Mind. Mr. Banks used the analogy of waves in an ocean. We are all waves in the ocean of Divine Mind. We are all one.
Syd Banks said, “We are all unique, and none of us are special.” Even though he had a profound spiritual awakening, he was clear that this was available to every human and that he wasn’t special.
Anita Moorjani has some powerful insights and lessons that she learned from her near death experience and one of my favorites is that we are all one. She uses the analogy of a hand. God, Divine Mind, Universal Intelligence (the energy and intelligence behind all life) is like a hand and we are all fingers on that hand. I don’t need to compete with any of the other fingers because we are all part of the whole.
This is the opposite of how we are raised and schooled.
We are conditioned to believe that we must be special to be worthy. School is an incredibly effective sorting machine. It sorts kids into levels and then sorts them by grades and GPA. As if a high GPA is superior to a low GPA.
There is intense pressure to excel in school and sports. The myth that success in school equals success in life has millions of teens stressed out. Rates of anxiety and depression are at an all time high. The reality is that success is high school IS a good predictor of success in college, but not success in life.
“I find no substantial statistical correlation between the economic-productivity factors (net worth and income) and SATs, class rank in college, and grade performance in college.”
Thomas Stanley, The Millionaire Mind
Apparently this was based on a semi-random national survey of 773 millionaires. The average high school GPA of this group was 2.9.
Society feeds your fragile, insecure ego, the illusory part of you that drives you to constantly prove you are special.
“Ego creates self-importance and is strictly related to the personal self and the personal intellect.”
Sydney Banks, The Missing Link
Media feeds us a constant stream of highlights of the lives of “special” people. They are thin, beautiful, fashionable, and photoshopped. Our heroes today are celebrities who perform and excel at branding themselves as special.
We believe that we need to do better than our peers. Life becomes an endless competition to be the best. Social media feeds this competitive frenzy and we all become a bit more insecure.
Syd Banks helps us to understand that we live in the experience of our thoughts and our thoughts are continuous, random, and untrue. Our free will is our ability to choose which thoughts to give life to.
I am a unique expression of God. I have been given the gifts of Divine Mind, Divine Consciousness, and Divine Thought. I have been given the gift of free will which allows me to use my personal thought as I choose.
My beauty, athleticism, intellect, achievements, title, wealth, etc., do not make me special. They are all fleeting and illusory. And I know this because the satisfaction that I get from them is fleeting and I always want more. As my mentor, Dr.Bill Pettit says, we can never get enough of that which we don’t need.
When I understand that I am more than this physical body, or this self image that I have created in my thinking, then I am free to connect with my divine Self. Anita Moorjani says that only 20% of us is crammed into this physical body. Our true selves are so vast that 80% of us lives beyond the physical. Wow! That is so exciting!
I see other people as souls who are part of the greater whole, as is my soul. I don’t need to compete with them or prove that I am better than them. We are all the same.
“As we start to regain the true relationship between our personal intelligence and the spiritual wisdom that lies within, we develop a higher degree of intelligence and common sense. This, in turn, clears up our misguided lives.”
Sydney Banks, The Missing Link