“As soon as you pick up a technique, you are being programmed again.”

That line stopped me when I heard it from Antony de Mello in his talk, “Awareness.”

Not because techniques are bad.

But because of what they quietly assume.

The Question Behind the Question

In almost every conversation about mental well-being, someone eventually asks:

“How do I get more quiet?”

“How do I get more clarity?”

“How do I stop overthinking?”

“How do I stay grounded?”

Notice what is embedded in those questions.

The assumption is that quiet and clarity are outcomes we must produce. That something is missing.
That we need to add something. That we need a method.

That the solution lives outside of us.

It sounds reasonable. It even sounds responsible. But it quietly reinforces an outside-in understanding of life.

Techniques Are Not the Enemy

Let me be clear, I am not anti-techniques.

Breathing exercises can help. Meditation apps can help. Journaling can help. Cold plunges, affirmations, productivity systems. All helpful. In fact, I have done them all from time to time, and they have been very helpful.

The problem is not the technique.

The misunderstanding is where we locate the source of change.

If we believe the technique creates clarity, then clarity now depends on the technique. If we skip the routine or lose the rhythm, we assume we have lost the peace.

That is programming, and that is why I found that while some techniques worked, others didn’t. Since I thought the technique was doing the lifting, there must have been something I was not doing right.

Not malicious programming. Just an innocent misunderstanding.

What the Three Principles Point To

The understanding of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought points somewhere very different.

Clarity is not created. It is revealed.

Quiet is not achieved. It is what remains when personal thinking settles.

“Mental health lies within the consciousness of all human beings.”
~ Sydney Banks

If that is true, then we are not building mental health through strategies. We are uncovering what is already there. And that shifts everything.

The Addiction to “How”

The “how” question almost always comes from the intellect.

The intellect loves steps. It loves structure. It loves control.

But insight does not arrive through control.

It arrives through realization.

“This process of change doesn’t come by intellectual understanding, it comes via realization.” ~Sydney Banks

You cannot engineer realization. You cannot grind your way into clarity.

If I ask, “How do I quiet my mind?” I am using a busy mind to solve a busy mind.

It is like shaking a snow globe to make the snow settle faster.

The Root Beneath the Search

Why do we reach for techniques in the first place?

Often, it is insecurity.

Insecurity about what we are feeling. Insecurity about not being in control. Insecurity about whether we are okay as we are.

“The root of everybody’s patterns is insecurity.” ~ Dr. Roger Mills

When we feel insecure, the search for “how” intensifies. We want something solid to hold onto. Something to guarantee an outcome.

But insecurity itself is created through thought.

And thought moves.

What Actually Changes Reality

This is the quiet revolution in this understanding.

We do not need better techniques.

We need clearer insight into how experience is being created.

“As soon as our thinking changes, our reality changes.” ~Dr. Roger Mills

Notice what he did not say.

He did not say, “As soon as you master a method, your reality changes.”

He pointed to thinking.

When thinking shifts, experience shifts.

When thinking settles, clarity appears.

Not because we made it happen. Because that is the nature of mind.

The Do-Have-Be Trap

Most techniques operate from a simple formula:

If I do this practice, I will be calm, so I can be peaceful.

The Three Principles understanding quietly flips that.

Peace is foundational. Clarity is foundational. Wisdom is foundational.

When personal thinking quiets, being precedes doing.

From that grounded being, intelligent doing naturally follows.

No strain required.

You’re in flow, in the zone, just a being, doing.

A Gentle Invitation

If you find yourself asking, “How do I get quieter?” pause.

Instead of reaching for another tool, get curious about thought itself.

Notice how noise feels. Notice how clarity feels. Notice that both move.

You do not have to engineer your mind.

You only need to understand it.

And as that understanding deepens, something interesting happens.

You rely less on technique. You trust more in your design.

The deeper it goes, the simpler it gets.

And you may discover that what you were trying to achieve… was never missing in the first place.

With love,

A Quiet Expansion

There is something even more subtle here.

Every technique attempts to modify the experience inside a world created by thought.

But what if each moment of thinking is quietly generating a new psychological world?

A new internal landscape. A new version of reality.

A new Thinkiverse.

When we chase techniques, we are often trying to control the current Thinkiverse we find ourselves in.

But when thinking settles on its own, that entire world dissolves.

Not managed. Not improved. Not optimized. Simply replaced.

And what remains underneath every dissolving Thinkiverse is not chaos.

It is clarity. It is presence. It is intelligence that requires no instruction.

Perhaps the real freedom is not learning how to manage our worlds.

Perhaps it is seeing that they are being created moment to moment.

And that is what we truly are: we exist prior to all of them.

No technique required.

~ From the working draft of Thinkiverse: The Hidden Architecture of Reality

Here is Anthony de Mello’s video that sparked this blog post.