Visualization is an incredibly powerful tool. In fact, to say it’s a “tool” might distract from the fact that I believe it is almost the most important part of your very essence.
When you believe something completely, it becomes as real in your mind as it is in the rest of the world. It is incredible how much power your intangible mind has on the physical world as well. “If you believe in yourself.” Those familiar words are more true than most of us care to understand. It’s not only in yourself, but anything which you can believe.
Think positive, and positive will happen. Think health and purity, and that will happen too. This is what imagination is all about.
The other day I was in a meditation class and the teacher was explaining to us how the mind has no color, shape, or weight. He was teaching that the mind has no tangible existence in the world. I felt like my response was a little too deep for the context of the class, but I thought to myself that your mind absolutely has a tangible nature in the world – it’s the effects that your mind has on your experience in the world and how you shape the world around you that is the physical embodiment of your mind.
The tree was standing, now the tree is cut. You cut it down. The thoughts in your mind that lead you to do that look exactly like that tree laying on the ground.
A cold virus is also “intangible.” But, a pale face, a runny nose, a tired person, all these things are what that cold “looks like” in the outside world.
My meditation sessions have become more intense lately. I have decided not to restrict myself to thinking “on task,” but to allow myself to take on imaginary thoughts and sensations things as if they are real, because in a sense they are. The goal is to see what affect believing these things might have on my conscious, more realistic thoughts.
So far, this has lead to some new insights. I have always felt that there was a place near the back of my head that held a sense of clarity and truth. If I center my thoughts and feelings there, it makes me feel very good.
Today I started to feel like the source of these feelings is small and round, and sort of hovering in that space in the back of my head. I decided to do my best to imagine touching the source, and as soon as I did I immediately felt an incredible source of energy surge through me.
I can’t describe what exactly it felt like, but it was very strong. I could do it again, and again, and again.
I am amazed at the power that the mind has over the body, and the world around it. Whenever I manage to clearly visualize something, I gain a small sense of truth about it. The truth becomes more a part of my life, and little pieces of confusion and despair slowly wash away.
Imagine the possibilities of years of practice and training of the mind using this incredibly simple and basically instinctual technique! What could you do with athletics, or music, or with the people around you?