Chapter 4 from our book In Resonance – Visualization
The physical world around us is solid and real to us because we have spent our lives developing our senses to experience it as such. Imagine if you had spent the last 20 to 60 years, or the term of your life, experiencing the ‘inner realms’ every day with those same senses and with the same consistency that you have applied them to the physical world? How real would those inner realms be to you then?
Just as we have explorers and researchers in the outer world, we also now have many people who have begun to explore the inner realms in search of the elusive key to happiness, love and abundance.
Throughout history, some individuals have been motivated by higher mind, to seek answers to the riddle of human existence. But now many more are seriously beginning the inner journey commonly reserved for mystics, sages, avatars and the mystery schools of days gone by.
Since the dawn of history, humanity has been in search of higher wisdom and knowledge. The problems plaguing modern society can be said to be a direct result of a lack of higher wisdom and of feeling separate from the Creative Force. When we begin to experience and understand higher knowing by going within and merging our awareness with the energy that sustains us, lack of purpose and unhappiness are replaced by joy from self-discovery and by feelings of fulfillment.
By learning how to open up to – and by listening to – inner guidance, we find ourselves on the right path, fulfilling our destiny. Unhappiness, disease and stress are indicators that something is wrong with our lives. These indicators are not there by accident; they serve to advise us that our current actions and/or the path we are on is not the right one for us, and they prompt us to correct our attitudes and conduct.
Creative visualization allows us to explore the inner realms by activating our higher mind and working with Divine Intelligence to create a reality in another dimension. When experienced regularly, this ‘reality’ then filters through and changes our day to day reality on this plane. In her book, Ye Are Gods, Annalee Skarin writes, “The imagination is a God-given gift. It is the power of the mind to ‘image in’ to the spiritual realm the seeds of desire” (using the power of visualization). All our waking reality is created by thought. Everything which exists on the physical plane, is the product of thought and the will of man and the thought and will of the Creative Power.
Modern research has shown that the body cannot tell the difference between a strong visualization experience and an actual event, and treats the two as if they were the same. This idea opens up a whole realm which was previously unexplored and allows us to understand that the body truly is the servant of the mind. The physical and emotional bodies serves the mental body which, in turn, uses the spiritual body as a conduit for all bodies to connect into the higher heaven world. Higher mind is our Higher Self (soul) and connects us to Divine Intelligence. Divine Intelligence manifests fully in our I AM Presence.
The knowledge of the power of creative visualization allows us to understand how we can ‘program’ away – or create – disease and illness. There is nothing we cannot achieve without the right ‘mind set’ but first we must have clarity and vision to create a new reality. Vision comes through meditation, contemplation and opening up to higher mind using visualization techniques.
Grace Cooke, in The Jewel in the Lotus, states that the real meaning of spiritual imagination is the creation in the higher mind of a language, which expresses pure beauty, pure goodness and pure love. She goes on to say that man can express his soul in worlds remote from this with his imagination and vision. She says that people’s fear of the unknown, or of being deceived, causes them to create a barrier between themselves and the real world of Spirit and that real imagination is the doorway into the etheric world and higher realms.
Esoteric studies show that the four-fifths of the brain man is known not to use – the cerebrum – houses our higher mind and is the database for higher consciousness. The more we tune to, and use, the higher mind through techniques such as visualization, the easier it becomes to create the reality we desire and access our Divine Blueprint. Details and techniques to activate the cerebrum and other brain centers are covered in the chapter on telepathic communication.
The difference between higher mind and lower mind is that while lower mind is concerned with everyday issues of survival on this physical plane, higher mind prompts us to evolve further and ask questions like, “Is there a greater purpose to life?”, “Is there a life after death?”, “Is there a higher power, a grander scheme?” – and many more!
By using the ritual of visualization and the white light energy, we bring into operation a super-conscious mind and, when used in meditation, this mind creates a real world which is inspirational or tranquil, depending on the images accessed. If practiced regularly, this experience then spills into our everyday waking reality.
Many people ask how to tell the difference between true imagination and mere fantasy. “True imagination comes as a result of the reaction on the brain of higher vibrations which have been set in motion by your sincere aspiration and prayer. You can think all kinds of unworthy and foolish thoughts with your lower mind but when you have touched that power and golden light … you are suffused with that God power, and that affects not only your higher mind but your brain, so that you are able to create, by the power of God, the form described to you (in guided meditation and visualization) to help you break through into the world of Spirit” – Grace Cooke in The Jewel in the Lotus. (This text is wonderfully informative for those beginning meditation and creative visualization).
For over 19 years, I avoided using techniques of creative visualization. During my practice of meditation I had become addicted to the feelings of joy and love that I experienced through breath and light work. These tuned me to what I knew as ‘Holy Name’, the energy that drives the breath, and the light which I activated through the physical technique of turning the physical eyes inward and upward to focus on the brow chakra. I knew through experience that this form of meditation in some subtle, yet powerful, way changed me as I became calmer, more centered and focused, and more able to act, rather than react, to the stimulus of life’s experiences.
Then experiences I enjoyed led me to consciously begin working with the brotherhoods of light. (Discussed in the chapter 32 on the universal brotherhoods). Suddenly, I understood the purpose of my previous training, and I developed the committed desire to become the clearest channel that I could be for Divine Intelligence. Utilizing creative visualization allowed me to consciously activate higher mind, cleanse and realign my energy fields in a profound and consistent manner, and speed up the apprenticeship of mastery of self.
Specific visualization techniques are described in this book to increase the light quotient in our bodies, to release negative programming and emotional baggage that no longer serves us, and much more.
At the end of chapter 7 is creative visualization exercise 1. This combines visualization with white light energy and breath work and is a great technique to de-stress and connect with the inner calm.
Creative visualization allows us to fully activate our inner senses. We all have these senses activated to varying degrees. Some of us are naturally clairvoyant in that it is easy for us to ‘see’ in guided meditation using visualization techniques. Some don’t seem to see anything but have a strong sense of feeling or clairsentience. Some seem to be naturally clairaudient and hear easily when in these inner realms.
The challenge is to develop all the senses so that, when we use creative visualization techniques and go within, our senses of sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing are fully alive and our experiences of these things can be sustained at will.
Exercises to develop these senses via creative visualization are at the end of chapter 13, called ‘Creating the Inner Sanctuary’. Throughout the next chapters are approximately 17 guided meditation exercises that use visualization techniques, and there are many other profound visualization exercises and guided meditation tapes now available.
It has been suggested that initially we should use tapes for only 40% of the time when meditating. When we have become proficient at visualization this should substantially be reduced as our being has its own focus, agenda and vision to tap into to lead us on our inner journey. Always taking external instruction can inhibit the Inner Teacher.
Visualization is like an artist being given a blank canvas. Our imagination – the paint brush and paints – is just a tool, a means to an end. What we focus on grows. Imagination and visualization are seeds we sow today to create the reality of tomorrow.
For more – go to our book In Resonance