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Read Summary of '''[[Imagination Summary|Imagination]]'''
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= What Is Imagination ? =
… what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40</ref> <center>~</center> The imagination is really the power of mental formation. When this power is put at the service of the Divine, it is not only formative but also creative. There is, however, no such thing as an unreal formation, because every image is a reality on the mental plane. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination#p1</ref> <center>~</center> When you imagine something, it means that you make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the truth—it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental formation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they succeed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there are some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so powerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not many of them but there are some. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p25</ref> <center>~</center> Imagination itself is in its nature a substitute for a truer consciousness faculty of intuition of possibility. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p25</ref> <center>~</center>
Our surface imagination is a selection from a vaster more creative and effective subliminal image-building power of consciousness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-ego-and-self-experience#p15</ref>
Imagination <center>~</center> And now, to come down to a more ordinary level, everyone has in him, in a greater or lesser measure, the power to give form to his mental activity and use this form either in his ordinary activity or to create and realise something. We are all the time, always, creating images, creating forms. We send them into the atmosphere without even knowing that we are doing so—they go roaming about, pass from one person to another, meet companions, sometimes join together and get on happily, sometimes create conflicts, and there are battles; for often, very often, in these mental imaginations there is a small element of will which tries to realise itself is , and then everyone tries to send out his formation so that it can act, so that things can happen as he wants and, as everyone does this, it creates a general confusion. If our eyes were open to the vision of all these forms in its nature the atmosphere, we would see very amazing things: battlefields, waves, onsets, retreats of a substitute crowd of small mental entities which are constantly thrown out into the air and always try to realise themselves. All these formations have a common tendency to want to materialise and realise themselves physically, and as they are countless—they are far too many for there to be room enough on earth to manifest them—they jostle and elbow one another, they try to push back those which do not agree with them or even form armies marching in good order, always to take up the available room both in time and space—it is only a truer consciousness faculty of intuition very small space compared with the countless number of possibilitycreations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2109/the-cosmic-illusion3-mindseptember-dream-and-hallucination1958#p25p9</ref> <center>~</center>
The … our mind has the faculty of imagination ; it can create and take as true and real its own mental structures: here, it might be thought, is really something analogous to the power action of Maya. Our mental formationimagination is an instrument of Ignorance; it is the resort or device or refuge of a limited capacity of knowledge, a limited capacity of effective action. When this Mind supplements these deficiencies by its power of imagination: it uses it to extract from things obvious and visible the things that are not obvious and visible; it undertakes to create its own figures of the possible and the impossible; it erects illusory actuals or draws figures of a conjectured or constructed truth of things that are not true to outer experience. That is put at least the appearance of its operation; but, in reality, it is the mind's way or one of its ways of summoning out of Being its infinite possibilities, even of discovering or capturing the service unknown possibilities of the DivineInfinite. But, because it cannot do this with knowledge, it makes experimental constructions of truth and possibility and a yet unrealised actuality: as its power of receiving inspirations of Truth is limited, it imagines, hypothetises, questions whether this or that may not only formative but also creative. There be truths; as its force to summon real potentials isnarrow and restricted, however, no such thing it erects possibilities which it hopes to actualise or wishes it could actualise; as an unreal formationits power to actualise is cramped and confined by the material world's oppositions, because every image it figures subjective actualisations to satisfy its will of creation and delight of self-presentation. But it is to be noted that through the imagination it does receive a reality figure of truth, does summon possibilities which are afterwards realised, does often by its imagination exercise an effective pressure on the mental planeworld's actualities. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0321/powerthe-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-ofand-imaginationhallucination#p1p24</ref>
When you imagine something, it means that you make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the truth—it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental formation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they succeed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there are some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so powerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not many of them but there are some. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p25~</refcenter>
Imaginations that persist in the human mind, like the idea of travel in the air, end often by self-fulfilment; individual thought-formations can actualise themselves if there is sufficient strength in the formation or in the mind that forms it. Imaginations can create their own potentiality, especially if they are supported in the collective mind, and may in the long run draw on themselves the sanction of the cosmic Will. In fact all imaginations represent possibilities: some are able one day to actualise in some form, perhaps a very different form of actuality; more are condemned to sterility because they do not enter into the figure or scheme of the present creation, do not come within the permitted potentiality of the individual or do not accord with the collective or the generic principle or are alien to the nature or destiny of the containing world-existence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p24</ref>
Our mind is an observer <center>~</center> ''Q: Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and user of actualitieshave the contact?'' A: Certainly if you succeed in imagining the Divine you have the contact, a diviner or recipient of truths not yet known or actualisedand you can have the contact with what you imagine, a dealer in possibilities that mediate between the truth and actualityany case. But it has not the omniscience of an infinite Consciousness; In fact it is limited in knowledge and has absolutely impossible to supplement its restricted knowledge by imagination and discoveryimagine something which doesn't exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn't exist somewhere. It does not, like is possible that it doesn't exist on the infinite Consciousness, manifest the knownearth, it has to discover the unknown; is possible that it seizes the possibilities of the Infinite, not as results or variations of forms of a latent Truth's elsewhere, but as constructions or creations, figments of its own boundless imagination. It has it is impossible for you to imagine something which is not already contained in principle in the omnipotence of an infinite conscious Energyuniverse; otherwise it can only realise or actualise what the cosmic Energy will accept from it or what it has the strength to impose or introduce into the sum of things because the secret Divinity, superconscient or subliminal, which uses it intends that that should be expressed in Naturecould not occur. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2107/the-cosmic6-illusion-mind-dream-andjuly-hallucination1955#p22p42</ref>
= Nature of = Imagination in Children ==
… our mind has the faculty of imagination; it can create and take Children are not as "concretised", materialised in their physical consciousness as true and real its own mental structures: hereolder people—as one grows up, it might be thought, is something analogous to the action of Maya. Our mental imagination as though one is an instrument of Ignorance; it is the resort or device or refuge of coagulated and becomes more and more gross in one's consciousness unless through a limited capacity of knowledge, a limited capacity of effective willed actionone develops otherwise. Mind supplements these deficiencies by its power For instance, the majority of imagination: it uses children find it very difficult to extract distinguish their imagination, their dreams, what they see within themselves from outer things obvious . The world is not as limited as when one is older and visible the things that more precise. And they are not obvious and visibleextremely sensitive within; it undertakes they are much closer to create its own figures of the possible their psychic being than when they are grown up, and much more sensitive to the impossible; it erects illusory actuals or draws figures of a conjectured or constructed truth of things that forces which, later, will become invisible to them—but at this moment are not true to outer experience. That It is at least the appearance not unusual for children to have some sort of fits of fear or even of its operation; but, joy in realitytheir sleep, it is the mind's way or one from dreams. Children are afraid of its ways all sorts of summoning out things which for older people don't exist any more. Their vision is not solely material. They have a kind of Being its infinite possibilitiesperception, more or less exact and precise, even of discovering or capturing the unknown possibilities play of the Infiniteforces behind. ButSo, because it cannot do this with knowledge, it makes experimental constructions of truth being in that state they are influenced by forces which otherwise have no hold over people who are shut up in themselves and possibility and a yet unrealised actuality: as its power more gross. And these forces—the forces of receiving inspirations destruction, for example, or forces of Truth is limitedcruelty, it imaginesforces of wickedness, hypothetisesof ill-will—all, questions whether this or that may not be truths; as its force to summon real potentials all these things are in the atmosphere. When one is narrow more conscious and restrictedwell-formed within, it erects possibilities which it hopes to actualise or wishes it could actualise; as its power to actualise one can see that they are outside oneself and deny them any expression. But when one is cramped very young and confined by the material world's oppositionslives in a half-dream, it figures subjective actualisations to satisfy its will of creation these things can exercise much influence and delight of self-presentationmake children do things which in their normal state they would not do. But I believe it is due to be noted that through the imagination it does receive a figure of truth, does summon possibilities which are afterwards realised, does often by its imagination exercise an effective pressure on the world's actualitiesabove all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2105/the-cosmic-illusion30-mind-dream-anddecember-hallucination1953#p24p3</ref>
= Why is Imagination itself is in its nature a substitute for a truer consciousness's faculty of intuition of possibility: as the mind ascends towards the truth-consciousness, this mental power becomes a truth imagination which brings the colour and light of the higher truth into the limited adequacy or inadequacy of the knowledge already achieved and formulated and, finally, in the transforming light above it gives place wholly to higher truth-powers or itself turns into intuition and inspiration; the Mind in that uplifting ceases to be a creator of delusions and an architect of error. Mind then is not a sovereign creator of things non-existent or erected in a void: it is an ignorance trying to know; its very illusions start from a basis of some kind and are the results of a limited knowledge or a half-ignorance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p25</ref>Important? =
… people with imagination turn it upward, because up above there The universe is everythingprogressive; we said that constantly things manifest, you know, all inspirations of artistic more and literary things: this comes from another domain. It comes from a much more subtle domain, much less material. So these turn upward But for your imagination to be able to go and want to receive seek beyond the light from above. But manifestation something which will be manifested, well, it is the same instrument. The others turn may happen, in fact it downwards, and does—I was going to tell you that it is just a lack of gymnastic skill. It is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in the same instrument. It is world, because they have the same power capacity of a luminous ray upon imagining somethingthat's not yet manifested. But as one has made it a habit there are not many. One must first be capable of concentrating it in a certain direction, one going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something which is no longer supple, one loses the habit of doing not there. There are already many things otherwisewhich can be imagined. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0507/246-junejuly-19531955#p59p44</ref>
All human imaginations indeed correspond to some reality or real possibility, though they may in themselves be a quite inaccurate representation or couched in too physical images and therefore inapt to express the truth of supraphysical realities. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-planes-of-our-existence#p10~</refcenter>
= Source … people who can open to a higher region, a higher force which, passing through the mental layers, comes and takes a form in a human mind and reveals itself in the world as new truths, new philosophical systems, new spiritual teachings, which are the works and at the same time the actions of Imagination =the great beings who come to take birth on earth. That is an imagination which can be called "Truth-imagination". These higher forces, when they come down into the earth-atmosphere, take living, active, powerful forms, spread throughout the world and prepare a new age. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p7</ref>
The source from which these imaginations come has nothing to do with the reason and does not care for any rational objections. They come either from the vital mind, the same source from which come all the fine imaginations and long stories which men tell themselves in which they are the heroes and do great things or they come from little entities attached to the physical mind which pick up any random suggestion anywhere and present it to the mind just to see whether it will be accepted. If one watches oneself closely one can find the most queer and extraordinary or nonsensical things crossing the mind or peeping in on it in this way. Usually one laughs or hardly notices and the thing falls back to the world of incoherent thought from which it came. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p20~</refcenter>
== Vital Mind Men of science must be having imagination! A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and Imagination ==towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere and these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be disciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate it. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40</ref>
By the higher vital parts of the nature I mean the vital mind, the emotional nature, the life-force dynamis in the being. The vital mind is that part of the vital being which builds, plans, imagines. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p16~</refcenter>
… If you imagined something more beautiful, a more beautiful life, that would be worth the trouble. People who take pleasure in writing ugly things show a great poverty of mind—it is always a sign of a poverty of mind. It is infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful from beginning to end than to write a story ending with a sensational event or a catastrophe. Many authors, if they had to write a story which ends happily, beautifully, would not be able to do it—they do not have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have an unbalanced vital and uplifting ending, almost all end in a failure—for a weak nervous system apt very simple reason, it is much more easy to fall than to rise. It is much more difficult to follow its own imaginations end one's story on a note of greatness and unruled impulses without any true mental will or strong vital will splendour, to make one's hero a genius seeking to steady or restrain ittranscend himself, because for that one must be a genius oneself, and so at the mercy of the imaginationsthis is not given to everybody. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3104/accidents26-possessionfebruary-madness1951#p32p23</ref>
This at once raises the question of the nature of Mind, the parent of these illusions, and its relation to the original Existence. Is mind the child and instrument of an original Illusion, or is it itself a primal miscreating Force or Consciousness? or is the mental ignorance a misprision of the truths of Existence, a deviation from an original Truth-Consciousness which is the real world-builder? Our own mind, at any rate, is not an original and primary creative power of Consciousness; it is, and all mind of the same character must be, derivative, an instrumental demiurge, an intermediary creator. It is likely then that analogies from the errors of mind, which are the outcome of an intermediate Ignorance, may not truly illustrate the nature or action of an original creative Illusion, an all-inventing and all-constructing Maya. Our mind stands between a superconscience and an inconscience and receives from both these opposite powers: it stands between an occult subliminal existence and an outward cosmic phenomenon; it receives inspirations, intuitions, imaginations, impulsions to knowledge and action, figures of subjective realities or possibilities from the unknown inner source; it receives the figures of realised actualities and their suggestions of further possibility from the observed cosmic phenomenon. What it receives are truths essential, possible or actual; it starts from the realised actualities of the physical universe and it brings out from them in its subjective action the unrealised possibilities which they contain or suggest or to which it can arrive by proceeding from them as a starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities for a subjective action and plays with imagined or inwardly constructed forms of them; it chooses others for objectivisation and attempts to realise them. But it receives inspirations also from above and within, from invisible sources and not only from the impacts of the visible cosmic phenomenon; it sees truths other than those suggested by the actual physicality around it, and here too it plays subjectively with transmitted or constructed forms of these truths or it selects for objectivisation, attempts to realise. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p21~</refcenter>
Thus the mind's imaginations are not purely and radically illusory: they proceed on the basis of its experience of actualities or at least set out from that, are variations upon actuality, or they figure the "may-be"s or "might-be"s of the Infinite, what could be if other truths had manifested, if existing potentials had been otherwise arranged or other possibilities than those already admitted became potential. Moreover, through this faculty forms and powers of other domains than that of the physical actuality communicate with our mental being. Even when the imaginations are extravagant or take the form .one must have a lively power of hallucinations or illusionsimagination, they proceed with actuals or possibles for their basis. The mind creates the figure of a mermaidfor―I seem to be telling you stupid things, but the phantasy it is composed of two actualities put together in a way that is outside the earth's normal potentiality; angels, griffins, chimeras are constructed on the same principle: some times the imagination quite true―there is a memory of former actualities as world in which you are the mythical figure supreme maker of the dragon, sometimes it is a figure or a happening forms: that is real or could be real on other planes or in other conditions of existence… Again, when we look into your own particular vital world. You are the origin supreme fashioner and you can make a marvel of mental error, we find normally that your world if you know how to use it is a miscombination. If you have an artistic or poetic consciousness, misplacementif you love harmony, misusebeauty, misunderstanding or misapplication of elements of experience and knowledgeyou will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2108/the-cosmic-illusion-mind18-dream-andapril-hallucination1956#p2p55</ref>
= Different Types of Imaginations = Importance in Yoga ==
'''TruthThe imagination is like a knife which may be used for good or evil purposes. If you always dwell in the idea and feeling that you are going to be transformed, then you will help the process of the Yoga. If, on the contrary, you give in to dejection and bewail that you are not fit or that you are incapable of realisation, you poison your own being. It is just on account of this very important truth that I am so tirelessly insistent in telling you to let anything happen but, for heavens sake, not to get depressed. Live rather in the constant hope and conviction that what we are doing will prove a success. In other words, let your imagination be moulded by your faith in Sri Aurobindo; for, is not such faith the very hope and conviction that the will of Sri Aurobindo is bound to be done, that his work of transformation cannot but end in a supreme victory and that what he calls the supramental world will be brought down on earth and realised by us here and now? <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination'''#p2</ref>
There are higher geniuses still. They are people who can open to a higher region, a higher force which, passing through the mental layers, comes and takes a form in a human mind and reveals itself in the world as new truths, new philosophical systems, new spiritual teachings, which are the works and at the same time the actions of the great beings who come to take birth on earth. That is an imagination which can be called "Truth-imagination". These higher forces, when they come down into the earth-atmosphere, take living, active, powerful forms, spread throughout the world and prepare a new age. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p7~</refcenter>
'''Mental Imaginations Arising from If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an Ordinary Level'elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative—it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a good deal on what one calls imagination. However... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p38</ref>
And now, to come down to a more ordinary level, everyone has in him, in a greater or lesser measure, the power to give form to his mental activity and use this form either in his ordinary activity or to create and realise something. We are all the time, always, creating images, creating forms. We send them into the atmosphere without even knowing that we are doing so—they go roaming about, pass from one person to another, meet companions, sometimes join together and get on happily, sometimes create conflicts, and there are battles; for often, very often, in these mental imaginations there == What Happens When Imagination is a small element of will which tries to realise itself, and then everyone tries to send out his formation so that it can act, so that things can happen as he wants and, as everyone does this, it creates a general confusion. If our eyes were open to the vision of all these forms in the atmosphere, we would see very amazing things: battlefields, waves, onsets, retreats of a crowd of small mental entities which are constantly thrown out into the air and always try to realise themselves. All these formations have a common tendency to want to materialise and realise themselves physically, and as they are countless—they are far too many for there to be room enough on earth to manifest them—they jostle and elbow one another, they try to push back those which do not agree with them or even form armies marching in good order, always to take up the available room both in time and space—it is only a very small space compared with the countless number of creations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p9</ref>Directed Right? ==
'''Luminous Formations … people with imagination turn it upward, because up above there is everything, you know, all inspirations of artistic and Dark Formations'''literary things: this comes from another domain. It comes from a much more subtle domain, much less material. So these turn upward and want to receive the light from above. But it is the same instrument. The others turn it downwards, and it is just a lack of gymnastic skill. It is the same instrument. It is the same power of a luminous ray upon something. But as one has made it a habit of concentrating it in a certain direction, one is no longer supple, one loses the habit of doing things otherwise. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/24-june-1953#p59</ref>
I have known people with such opposite sides in their nature, so contradictory, that one day they could make a magnificent, luminous, powerful formation for realisation, and then === In the next day a defeatist, dark, black formation—a formation of despair—and so both would go out. And I was able to follow in the course of circumstances the beautiful one being realised, and while it was being realised, the dark one demolishing what the first one had done. And that is how it is in the larger lines of life as in its smaller details. And all that because one does not watch oneself thinking, because one believes one is the slave of these contradictory movements, because one says, "Oh! Today I am not feeling well. Oh! Today things seem sad to me", and one says this as if it were an ineluctable fate against which one could do nothing. But if one stands back or ascends a step, one can look at all these things, put them in their place, keep some, destroy or get rid of those one does not want and put all one's imaginative power—what is called imaginative—only in those one wants and which conform with one's highest aspiration. That is what I call controlling one's imagination. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p1</ref>Vital Mind ===
= Misuse The vital mind is that part of Imagination =the vital being which builds, plans, imagines. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p16</ref>
'''Acts in a Random and Excessive Way Without Discipline'''<center>~</center>
That [repetitive imaginative thinking] is the ordinary activity of the … an unbalanced vital mind which is always imagining and thinking and planning what a weak nervous system apt to do about this follow its own imaginations and how unruled impulses without any true mental will or strong vital will to arrange about that. It has obviously its utility in human nature and human actionsteady or restrain it, but acts in a random and excessive way without discipline, economy so at the mercy of its powers or concentration on the things that have really to be doneimaginations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2831/the-vitalaccidents-being-and-vitalpossession-consciousnessmadness#p18p32</ref>
'''Giving a Form to Your Fears'''<center>~</center>
...a good deal of our life embodies The source from which these imaginations come has nothing to do with the products of our imagination. Every time you indulge your imagination in an unhealthy way, giving a form to your fears reason and anticipating accidents and misfortunes, you are undermining your own futuredoes not care for any rational objections. On They come either from the other handvital mind, the more optimistic your imagination, same source from which come all the greater fine imaginations and long stories which men tell themselves in which they are the chance of your realising your aim. Monsieur Coué got hold of this potent truth heroes and cured hundreds of people by simply teaching them do great things or they come from little entities attached to imagine themselves out of misery. He once related the case of a lady whose hair was falling off. She began to suggest to herself that she was improving every day physical mind which pick up any random suggestion anywhere and that her hair was surely growing. By constantly imagining present it her hair really began to grow and even reached an enviable length owing the mind just to still further auto-suggestionsee whether it will be accepted. The power of mental formation is If one watches oneself closely one can find the most useful in Yoga also; when queer and extraordinary or nonsensical things crossing the mind is put or peeping in communication with the Divine Will, the supramental Truth begins to descend through the layers intervening between the mind and the highest Light and if, on reaching the mind, it finds there the power of making forms it easily becomes embodied and stays as a creative force in youthis way. Therefore I say to you never be dejected Usually one laughs or hardly notices and disappointed but let your imagination be always hopeful and joyously plastic the thing falls back to the stress world of the higher Truth, so that the latter may find you full of the necessary formations to hold its creative lightincoherent thought from which it came. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0328/powerthe-ofvital-being-and-vital-imaginationconsciousness#p1p20</ref>
'''''Wrong Thinking and Illness'''''<center>~</center>
In fact I can assure you that the pain in the stomach as well as many other discomforts are due 90% to wrong thinking and strong imaginations—I mean that the material basis for them is practically negligible. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
He may find out that it is all his imagination, for it is his imagination that makes him sick or rather gives him the impression of sickness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p23</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
That [repetitive imaginative thinking] is the ordinary activity of the vital mind which is always imagining and thinking and planning what to do about this and how to arrange about that. It has obviously its utility in human nature and human action, but acts in a random and excessive way without discipline, economy of its powers or concentration on the things that have really to be done. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p18</ref>
 
= How to Enhance the Faculty of Imagination? =
 
I have known people with such opposite sides in their nature, so contradictory, that one day they could make a magnificent, luminous, powerful formation for realisation, and then the next day a defeatist, dark, black formation—a formation of despair—and so both would go out. And I was able to follow in the course of circumstances the beautiful one being realised, and while it was being realised, the dark one demolishing what the first one had done. And that is how it is in the larger lines of life as in its smaller details. And all that because one does not watch oneself thinking, because one believes one is the slave of these contradictory movements, because one says, "Oh! Today I am not feeling well. Oh! Today things seem sad to me", and one says this as if it were an ineluctable fate against which one could do nothing. But if one stands back or ascends a step, one can look at all these things, put them in their place, keep some, destroy or get rid of those one does not want and put all one's imaginative power—what is called imaginative—only in those one wants and which conform with one's highest aspiration. That is what I call controlling one's imagination. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p1</ref>
 
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...a good deal of our life embodies the products of our imagination. Every time you indulge your imagination in an unhealthy way, giving a form to your fears and anticipating accidents and misfortunes, you are undermining your own future. On the other hand, the more optimistic your imagination, the greater the chance of your realising your aim. Monsieur Coué got hold of this potent truth and cured hundreds of people by simply teaching them to imagine themselves out of misery. He once related the case of a lady whose hair was falling off. She began to suggest to herself that she was improving every day and that her hair was surely growing. By constantly imagining it her hair really began to grow and even reached an enviable length owing to still further auto-suggestion. The power of mental formation is most useful in Yoga also; when the mind is put in communication with the Divine Will, the supramental Truth begins to descend through the layers intervening between the mind and the highest Light and if, on reaching the mind, it finds there the power of making forms it easily becomes embodied and stays as a creative force in you. Therefore I say to you never be dejected and disappointed but let your imagination be always hopeful and joyously plastic to the stress of the higher Truth, so that the latter may find you full of the necessary formations to hold its creative light. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination#p1</ref>
 
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Stop imagining wrong things and your miseries will stop at the same time. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p1</ref>
= Imagination and Yoga =<center>~</center>
The imagination Imagination, for instance, is like a knife which may be used for good or evil purposes. If when you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you always dwell in the idea apply all your conceptions, and feeling when you tell yourself, "Why, it should be like this, like that you are going to , its form should be transformedlike this, its thought like that, its character like that, then " when you will help see all the process of details and build up the Yogabeing. IfNow, on writers do this all the contrarytime because when they write a novel, you give in to dejection and bewail that you they imagine. There are those who take things from life but there are not fit or that you those who are incapable of realisationimaginative, creators; they create a character, you poison your own beinga personage and then put him in their book later. It This is just on account to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of circumstances, a set of events, this very important truth that is what I am so tirelessly insistent in call telling you a story to let anything happen butoneself. But it can be put down on paper, for heavens sakeand then one becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, not some gather all sorts of observations from life and construct their book with them. There are a hundred ways of writing a book. But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to get depressedend. Live rather It all comes out of their head and they construct even their whole story without any support in the constant hope things physically observed. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and conviction that what we are doing will prove have a success. In other words, let your imagination be moulded by your faith in Sri Aurobindo; considerable capacity forcreation, it is not such faith the very hope and conviction possible that the one day or other there will of Sri Aurobindo is bound to be done, that his work of transformation cannot but end in a supreme victory and that what he calls the supramental world will be brought down on earth and realised by us here and now? physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0307/power6-ofjuly-imagination1955#p2p32</ref>
= Yogic Understanding of Imagination and Children =
Children are not as "concretised", materialised in their physical consciousness as older people—as one grows up, it is as though one is coagulated and becomes more and more gross in one's consciousness unless through a willed action one develops otherwise. For instance, the majority of children find it very difficult to distinguish their imagination, their dreams, what they see within themselves from outer things. The world is not as limited as when one is older and more precise. And they are extremely sensitive within; they are much closer to their psychic being than when they are grown up, and much more sensitive to the forces which, later, will become invisible to them—but at this moment are not. It is not unusual for children All human imaginations indeed correspond to have some sort of fits of fear reality or even of joy in their sleepreal possibility, from dreams. Children are afraid of all sorts of things which for older people don't exist any more. Their vision is not solely material. They have a kind of perception, more or less exact and precise, of the play of the forces behind. So, being in that state though they are influenced by forces which otherwise have no hold over people who are shut up may in themselves and more gross. And these forces—the forces of destruction, for example, be a quite inaccurate representation or forces of cruelty, forces of wickedness, of ill-will—all, all these things are couched in the atmosphere. When one is more conscious and well-formed within, one can see that they are outside oneself and deny them any expression. But when one is very young too physical images and lives in a half-dream, these things can exercise much influence and make children do things which in their normal state they would not do. I believe it is due therefore inapt to that above allexpress the truth of supraphysical realities. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0523/30the-planes-of-decemberour-1953existence#p3p10</ref>
= Practices =<center>~</center>
Imagination itself is in its nature a substitute for a truer consciousness'''You Can Make s faculty of intuition of possibility: as the mind ascends towards the truth-consciousness, this mental power becomes a Marvel truth imagination which brings the colour and light of Your World''' ...one must have a lively power the higher truth into the limited adequacy or inadequacy of imaginationthe knowledge already achieved and formulated and, finally, for―I seem in the transforming light above it gives place wholly to higher truth-powers or itself turns into intuition and inspiration; the Mind in that uplifting ceases to be telling you stupid a creator of delusions and an architect of error. Mind then is not a sovereign creator of things, but non-existent or erected in a void: it is quite true―there is an ignorance trying to know; its very illusions start from a world in which you basis of some kind and are the supreme maker results of forms: that is your own particular vital world. You are the supreme fashioner and you can make a marvel of your world if you know how to use it. If you have an artistic limited knowledge or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestationa half-ignorance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0821/18the-cosmic-illusion-mind-aprildream-and-1956hallucination#p55p25</ref>
If one knows how to use it, as I said, one can create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In fact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don't you, and this goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow. Imagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not imaginative—it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is there before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a good deal on what one calls imagination. However... <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p38~</refcenter>
''Men Our mind is an observer and user of science must actualities, a diviner or recipient of truths not yet known or actualised, a dealer in possibilities that mediate between the truth and actuality. But it has not the omniscience of an infinite Consciousness; it is limited in knowledge and has to supplement its restricted knowledge by imagination and discovery. It does not, like the infinite Consciousness, manifest the known, it has to discover the unknown; it seizes the possibilities of the Infinite, not as results or variations of forms of a latent Truth, but as constructions or creations, figments of its own boundless imagination. It has not the omnipotence of an infinite conscious Energy; it can only realise or actualise what the cosmic Energy will accept from it or what it has the strength to impose or introduce into the sum of things because the secret Divinity, superconscient or subliminal, which uses it intends that that should be having imagination!''expressed in Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p22</ref>
A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself outside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere and these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be disciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate it. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40~</refcenter>
Thus the mind's imaginations are not purely and radically illusory: they proceed on the basis of its experience of actualities or at least set out from that, are variations upon actuality, or they figure the "may-be"s or "might-be"s of the Infinite, what could be if other truths had manifested, if existing potentials had been otherwise arranged or other possibilities than those already admitted became potential. Moreover, through this faculty forms and powers of other domains than that of the physical actuality communicate with our mental being. Even when the imaginations are extravagant or take the form of hallucinations or illusions, they proceed with actuals or possibles for their basis. The mind creates the figure of a mermaid, but the phantasy is composed of two actualities put together in a way that is outside the earth'Sweet Mothers normal potentiality; angels, griffins, chimeras are constructed on the same principle: some times the imagination is a memory of former actualities as in the mythical figure of the dragon, sometimes it is a figure or a happening that is real or could be real on other planes or in other conditions of existence… Again, can one imagine when we look into the Divine origin of mental error, we find normally that it is a miscombination, misplacement, misuse, misunderstanding or misapplication of elements of experience and have knowledge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the contact?''-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p2</ref>
Certainly if you succeed in imagining the Divine you have the contact, and you can have the contact with what you imagine, in any case. In fact it is absolutely impossible to imagine something which doesn't exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn't exist somewhere. It is possible that it doesn't exist on the earth, it is possible that it's elsewhere, but it is impossible for you to imagine something which is not already contained in principle in the universe; otherwise it could not occur. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p42~</refcenter>
'''Seek Beyond This at once raises the Manifestation'''question of the nature of Mind, the parent of these illusions, and its relation to the original Existence. Is mind the child and instrument of an original Illusion, or is it itself a primal miscreating Force or Consciousness? or is the mental ignorance a misprision of the truths of Existence, a deviation from an original Truth-Consciousness which is the real world-builder? Our own mind, at any rate, is not an original and primary creative power of Consciousness; it is, and all mind of the same character must be, derivative, an instrumental demiurge, an intermediary creator. It is likely then that analogies from the errors of mind, which are the outcome of an intermediate Ignorance, may not truly illustrate the nature or action of an original creative Illusion, an all-inventing and all-constructing Maya. Our mind stands between a superconscience and an inconscience and receives from both these opposite powers: it stands between an occult subliminal existence and an outward cosmic phenomenon; it receives inspirations, intuitions, imaginations, impulsions to knowledge and action, figures of subjective realities or possibilities from the unknown inner source; it receives the figures of realised actualities and their suggestions of further possibility from the observed cosmic phenomenon. What it receives are truths essential, possible or actual; it starts from the realised actualities of the physical universe and it brings out from them in its subjective action the unrealised possibilities which they contain or suggest or to which it can arrive by proceeding from them as a starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities for a subjective action and plays with imagined or inwardly constructed forms of them; it chooses others for objectivisation and attempts to realise them. But it receives inspirations also from above and within, from invisible sources and not only from the impacts of the visible cosmic phenomenon; it sees truths other than those suggested by the actual physicality around it, and here too it plays subjectively with transmitted or constructed forms of these truths or it selects for objectivisation, attempts to realise. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p21</ref>
The universe is progressive{|class="wikitable" style= "background-color: #efefff; width: 100%; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for your imagination to be able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something which will be manifested, well, it may happen, in fact it does—I was going to tell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in the world, because they have the capacity "|Read Summary of imagining something that's not yet manifested. But there are not many. One must first be capable of going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something which is not there. There are already many things which can be imagined. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p44</ref>''[[Imagination Summary|Imagination]]'''
=== For Writers ===ImaginationDear reader, for instance, is when if you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you apply all your conceptions, and when you tell yourself, "Why, it should be like this, like that, its form should be like this, its thought like that, its character like that," when you see all notice any error in the details and build up paragraph numbers in the being. Nowhyperlinks, writers do this all the time because when they write a novel, they imagine. There are those who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative, creators; they create a character, a personage and then put him in their book later. This is to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of circumstances, a set of events, this is what I call telling a story to oneself. But it can be put down on paper, and then one becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, some gather all sorts of observations from life and construct their book with themplease let us know by dropping an email at integral. There are a hundred ways of writing a bookedu. But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to end. It all comes out of their head and they construct even their whole story without any support in things physically observed@gmail. This truly is imagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a physical human being who realises their creation. This too is true. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p32</ref>com|}
If you imagined something more beautiful, a more beautiful life, that would be worth the trouble. People who take pleasure in writing ugly things show a great poverty of mind—it is always a sign of a poverty of mind. It is infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful from beginning to end than to write a story ending with a sensational event or a catastrophe. Many authors, if they had to write a story which ends happily, beautifully, would not be able to do it—they do not have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have an uplifting ending, almost all end in a failure—for a very simple reason, it is much more easy to fall than to rise. It is much more difficult to end one's story on a note of greatness and splendour, to make one's hero a genius seeking to transcend himself, because for that one must be a genius oneself, and this is not given to everybody. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-february-1951#p23</ref>=References=
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