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by Nymph Kellerman
It is a technique in which we use our imagination to create what
we desire in life. William Blake called
the human imagination the
“Bosom of God”. Creative visualization is a very dramatic tool,
given to us by God. There is nothing new or weird about it. We
already use it on a regular and daily basis, whether we are aware of
it or not. Everything in life starts as an idea in somebody's mind,
a visual image which is then translated into reality.
Albert
Einstein said “imagination is more important than knowledge”. We
are able to re-arrange our whole world with our thoughts, our
perceptions, and our images. Visualization is based on the
subconscious mind's inability to distinguish between reality and
daydreaming. In his famous equation e=mc², Einstein proved that
energy and mass are equal and interchangeable. In dealing with the
subconscious mind, thought is the energy and the outcome of that
thought is the mass.
We are all energy, and everything around us is
energy, energy that vibrates at different rates. The density of mass
determines this rate at which it vibrates. For instance, a thought
is a very light form of energy and can therefore change very quickly
and easily, whereas a rock is a very dense form of energy that does
not change easily. And yet, the fine, light energy of water
eventually changes a rock.
We are all one with everything else in
the entire universe, but at the same time, we are not one with
everything else – the great paradox of life. God created us as
very unique individuals and there have never been anyone else like
the authentic-you, and there will never be anyone else like the
authentic-you, but we are also energy like everything else around
us, and therefore at the same time that we exist on our unique
levels, we are also one with it all, one with the universe that
serves us and feeds us.
Dr Deepak Chopra explains the above with his
analogy of two candles. Imagine two candles standing in front of you
on a table. It is night-time and you light them. To you they appear
separate and independent, but the light they cast fills the whole
room with photons. The space between them, is bridged by light and
therefore there is no real separation between them. Now carry one
candle outside and hold it up against the night sky, the background
of stars, billions of light years away from you.
On the quantum
level each star is connected to your candle because the vast space
between them contains waves of energy that bind them. And as you
look at the candle and the far-away stars, photons of light from
both the stars and the candle land on your retina where they trigger
flashes of electro-chemical discharge. It belongs to a different
vibratory frequency from light, YET they are part of the same
electro-magnetic field.
You are thus another candle or star whose
concentration of matter and energy is just an outcropping of the
infinite field that surrounds and supports you. We should not be
afraid to dream. We need to believe in our dreams. The visualization
of a project is done as though it has already happened, and the rest
is left to the subconscious mind to do what it does best, to
transform thoughts into reality.
Countless studies have been done on
the medicinal effects of meditation, specifically in reducing
stress-related ailments and psychosomatic diseases. Harvard
psychologist Dr. Herbert Benson, claims that 60-90% of visits to the
doctor's office are stress related. He believes that the neuro-chemical
effects of meditation oppose the “fight-or-flight” mechanism,
due to the effects meditation has on the autonomic nervous system.
He calls this effect that meditation and prayer have on the brain,
the “relaxation response”. The amygdala that is part of the
limbic system, controls this response. This is also the part of the
brain that is associated with religious faith.
The psychological
effects of deep relaxation strengthen the effect that mind and body
have upon each other. It also supports a theory that we have
set-points and feedback loops in moods and mental states. Drug
addiction centers have been using various relaxation techniques to
mediate in confronting the acute attachment to drugs or alcohol and
to assist the addict in recognizing the ability of mindfulness in
countering his cravings. We have two minds.
The conscious mind and
the subconscious mind, sometimes also called the unconscious mind.
The conscious mind is the “awake-mind” - which is only used when
we are awake. The subconscious mind goes on working 24 hours of
every day. It is not a physical entity, and thus not located
anywhere in the physical body. It cannot be seen with the naked eye.
It cannot be measured, it cannot be weighed and it cannot be taken
apart for scientific research and study.
Gilbert Ryle, the author of
“The concept of mind”, talks about the human body as an engine
that is governed by another engine inside it. IT IS PART OF YOUR
IMMORTAL BODY. Dr. M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author of many
books, says when he begins to work with a new patient, he frequently
draws a large circle and at the circumference he draws a small
niche. Then he points to the inside of the niche and says to the new
patient: “That presents your conscious mind. All the rest of the
circle, 95 percent or more, represents your unconscious.
If you work
long enough and hard enough to understand yourself, you will come to
discover that this vast part of your mind, of which you now have
little awareness, contains riches beyond imagination”. Some facts
of the subconscious mind: It operates like a modern day computer,
but has a storage capacity and memory system that outdistances
ordinary computers in general.
The subconscious mind is a personal
computer, and the authentic-you is the computer-operator. It records
everything that happens in the personal, sensory and intellectual
world – from the day of conception until the day of death. It
takes directions from the conscious mind and follows these
directions implicitly. It is called the world's most obedient
servant. It can only say “yes”. It has no limitations, only
individuals have. This will be discussed under visualization. Every
thought becomes part of the never-failing memory system of the
subconscious mind.
EACH INIVIDUAL IS WHAT HE THINKS. We ought to be
careful and selective with our choice of thoughts. We alone chooses
our thoughts and our thoughts create and shape our world. The
subconscious mind does not know the difference between reality and a
day-dream. If a person imagines himself driving the car of his
dreams down the road, the subconscious mind accepts it as reality
and not merely as a day-dream.
For this reason, visualization is as
effective and successful as it is. It has no past and no future, it
only has a present tense. When we do visualizations and
affirmations, we do it only in the present tense and we only see the
end result, as though something has already happened. It is the
possessor of extraordinary knowledge. Dr. Scott Peck , based on Carl
Jung, uses the analogy of the subconscious mind as a rhizome, an
incredibly deep and hidden root system that nourishes the tiny
plant, the conscious mind, sprouting visibly from it. The
subconscious mind can be reprogrammed positively, by using two
remarkably powerful and potent methods: visualization and
affirmation.
FROM: “THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS”
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