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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 and user of 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 expressed in Nature. <refcenter>~</center>http ''Q://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/Sweet Mother, can one imagine the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-Divine and-hallucination#p22</ref>have the contact?''
= Nature of Imagination =A: 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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p42</ref>
… 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 something analogous to the action of Maya. Our mental imagination 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. 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 at least the appearance of its operation; but, == Imagination 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 unknown possibilities of the Infinite. 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 be truths; as its force to summon real potentials is narrow and restricted, it erects possibilities which it hopes to actualise or wishes it could actualise; as its power to actualise is cramped and confined by the material world's oppositions, 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 figure of truth, does summon possibilities which are afterwards realised, does often by its imagination exercise an effective pressure on the world's actualities. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p24</ref>Children ==
Imagination itself 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 its nature a substitute for a truer consciousnessone's faculty consciousness unless through a willed action one develops otherwise. For instance, the majority of intuition of possibility: 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 mind ascends towards the truth-consciousnessforces which, later, will become invisible to them—but at this mental power becomes moment are not. It is not unusual for children to have some sort of fits of fear or even of joy in their sleep, 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 truth imagination which brings the colour kind of perception, more or less exact and light precise, of the higher truth into play of the limited adequacy forces behind. So, being in that state they are influenced by forces which otherwise have no hold over people who are shut up in themselves and more gross. And these forces—the forces of destruction, for example, or inadequacy forces of the knowledge already achieved and formulated andcruelty, forces of wickedness, finallyof ill-will—all, all these things are in the transforming light above it gives place wholly to higher truthatmosphere. When one is more conscious and well-powers or itself turns into intuition and inspiration; the Mind in formed within, one can see that uplifting ceases to be a creator of delusions they are outside oneself and an architect of errordeny them any expression. Mind then But when one is not very young and lives in a sovereign creator of half-dream, these things can exercise much influence and make children do things non-existent or erected which in a void: their normal state they would not do. I believe it is an ignorance trying due to know; its very illusions start from a basis of some kind and are the results of a limited knowledge or a half-ignorancethat above all. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2105/the30-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-anddecember-hallucination1953#p25p3</ref>
… people with imagination turn it upward, because up above there = Why is everything, you know, all inspirations of artistic and 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>Imagination Important? =
All human imaginations indeed correspond The universe is progressive; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for your imagination to some reality or real possibilitybe able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something which will be manifested, well, though they it may happen, in themselves fact it does—I was going to tell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be a quite inaccurate representation or couched made in too physical images and therefore inapt to express the truth world, because they have the capacity of supraphysical realitiesimagining 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/cwsacwm/2307/the-planes-of6-ourjuly-existence1955#p10p44</ref>
= Source of Imagination =<center>~</center>
The source from … people who can open to a higher region, a higher force which these imaginations come has nothing to do with , passing through the reason mental layers, comes and does not care for any rational objections. They come either from the vital takes a form in a human mind, the same source from which come all the fine imaginations and long stories which men tell themselves reveals itself in the world as new truths, new philosophical systems, new spiritual teachings, which they are the heroes works and do at the same time the actions of the great things or they beings who come from little entities attached to the physical mind take birth on earth. That is an imagination which pick up any random suggestion anywhere and present it to the mind just to see whether it will can be acceptedcalled "Truth-imagination". If one watches oneself closely one can find These higher forces, when they come down into the most queer and extraordinary or nonsensical things crossing earth-atmosphere, take living, active, powerful forms, spread throughout the mind or peeping in on it in this way. Usually one laughs or hardly notices world and the thing falls back to the world of incoherent thought from which it cameprepare a new age. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2809/the-vital-being-and3-vitalseptember-consciousness1958#p20p7</ref>
== Vital Mind and Imagination ==<center>~</center>
By the higher vital parts 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 towards things realisable, and then to draw them by the nature I mean projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations. There are people who always imagine all the vital mindcatastrophes possible, and unfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It's like the emotional natureantennae going into a world that's not yet realised, catching something there and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the life-force dynamis in the beingearth 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. The vital mind It is that part one of the vital being which buildsfaculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, plansthat is, imaginesuse it for definite purposes. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2807/the-vital-being-and6-vitaljuly-consciousness1955#p16p40</ref>
… an unbalanced vital and a weak nervous system apt to follow its own imaginations and unruled impulses without any true mental will or strong vital will to steady or restrain it, and so at the mercy of the imaginations. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/accidents-possession-madness#p32~</refcenter>
This at once raises the question of the nature of MindIf you imagined something more beautiful, the parent of these illusionsa more beautiful life, and its relation to that would be worth the original Existencetrouble. Is mind the child and instrument People who take pleasure in writing ugly things show a great poverty of an original Illusion, or is it itself a primal miscreating Force or Consciousness? or mind—it is the mental ignorance always a misprision of the truths sign 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 poverty 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 infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful from the errors of mindbeginning 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 are the outcome of an intermediate Ignoranceends happily, beautifully, may would not be able to do it—they do not truly illustrate the nature or action of have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have an original creative Illusionuplifting ending, an almost all-inventing and all-constructing Maya. Our mind stands between end in a failure—for a superconscience and an inconscience and receives from both these opposite powers: very simple reason, it stands between an occult subliminal existence and an outward cosmic phenomenon; it receives inspirations, intuitions, imaginations, impulsions is much more easy to fall than to rise. It is much more difficult to knowledge and action, figures of subjective realities or possibilities from the unknown inner source; it receives the figures end one's story on a note of realised actualities greatness and their suggestions of further possibility from the observed cosmic phenomenon. What it receives are truths essentialsplendour, 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 make one's hero a starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities genius seeking to transcend himself, because for that one must be 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 withingenius oneself, from invisible sources and this is 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 given to realiseeverybody. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2104/the-cosmic-illusion-mind26-dream-andfebruary-hallucination1951#p21p23</ref>
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's 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, when we look into the origin of mental error, we find normally that it is a miscombination, misplacement, misuse, misunderstanding or misapplication of elements of experience and knowledge. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p2~</refcenter>
= Different Types ...one must have a lively power of Imaginations =imagination, for―I seem to be telling you stupid things, but it is quite true―there is a world in which you are the supreme maker 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 or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55</ref>
'''Truth-imagination'''== Importance in Yoga ==
There are higher geniuses stillThe imagination is like a knife which may be used for good or evil purposes. They If you always dwell in the idea and feeling that you are people who can open going to a higher regionbe transformed, a higher force whichthen you will help the process of the Yoga. If, passing through on the mental layerscontrary, comes you give in to dejection and takes a form 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 a human mind and reveals itself telling you to let anything happen but, for heavens sake, not to get depressed. Live rather in the world as new truthsconstant hope and conviction that what we are doing will prove a success. In other words, new philosophical systemslet your imagination be moulded by your faith in Sri Aurobindo; for, new spiritual teachings, which are is not such faith the works very hope and at conviction that the same time the actions will of the great beings who come Sri Aurobindo is bound to take birth on earth. That is an imagination which can be called "Truth-imagination". These higher forcesdone, when they come that his work of transformation cannot but end in a supreme victory and that what he calls the supramental world will be brought down into the on earth-atmosphere, take living, active, powerful forms, spread throughout the world and prepare a new age. realised by us here and now? <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0903/3power-septemberof-1958imagination#p7p2</ref>
'''Mental Imaginations Arising from an Ordinary Level'''<center>~</center>
And now, If one knows how to come down to a more ordinary leveluse it, everyone has in himas I said, in a greater or lesser measure, the power to give form to one can create for oneself his mental activity own inner and use this form either in outer life; one can build his own existence with his ordinary activity or imagination, if one knows how to create use it and realise somethinghas a power. We are all the time, always, In fact it is an elementary way of creating images, creating formsof forming things in the world. We send them into I have always felt that if one didn't have the atmosphere without even knowing that we are doing so—they go roaming aboutcapacity of imagination he would not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When you think of yourself, pass from one person usually you imagine what you want to anotherbe, meet companionsdon't you, sometimes join together and get on happilythis goes ahead, sometimes create conflicts, and there are battles; for oftenthen you follow, very often, in these mental imaginations there is a small element of will which tries to realise itself, and then everyone tries it continues to send out his formation so that it can act, so that things can happen as he wants go ahead and, as everyone does this, it creates a general confusionyou follow. If our eyes were open to Imagination opens for you the vision path of all these forms in the atmosphere, we would see realisation. People who are not imaginative—it is 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 difficult to realise themselves. All these formations have a common tendency to want to materialise and realise themselves physicallymake them move; they see just what is there before their nose, and as they feel just what they are countless—they are far too many for there to be room enough on earth to manifest them—they jostle moment by moment 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 cannot go forward because they are clamped by the available room both in time and space—it is only immediate thing. It depends a very small space compared with the countless number of creationsgood deal on what one calls imagination. However... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0907/36-septemberjuly-19581955#p9p38</ref> == What Happens When Imagination is not 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>
Stop <center>~</center> That [repetitive imaginative thinking] is the ordinary activity of the vital mind which is always imagining wrong things and your miseries will stop at 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 same timethings that have really to be done. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1528/wrongthe-thinkingvital-being-and-illnessvital-consciousness#p1p18</ref>
= How to Enhance the Faculty of Imagination and Yoga ? =
The imagination is like I have known people with such opposite sides in their nature, so contradictory, that one day they could make a knife which may be used magnificent, luminous, powerful formation for good or evil purposesrealisation, and then the next day a defeatist, dark, black formation—a formation of despair—and so both would go out. If you always dwell And I was able to follow in the idea course of circumstances the beautiful one being realised, and feeling that you are going to be transformedwhile it was being realised, then you will help the process of dark one demolishing what the Yogafirst one had done. If, on And that is how it is in the contrary, you give larger lines of life as in to dejection and bewail its smaller details. And all that you are because one does not fit or that you are incapable of realisationwatch oneself thinking, you poison your own being. It because one believes one is just on account the slave of this very important truth that these contradictory movements, because one says, "Oh! Today I am so tirelessly insistent in telling you not feeling well. Oh! Today things seem sad to let anything happen butme", for heavens sake, not to get depressedand one says this as if it were an ineluctable fate against which one could do nothing. Live rather in the constant hope and conviction that what we are doing will prove But if one stands back or ascends a success. In other wordsstep, one can look at all these things, let your imagination be moulded by your faith put them in Sri Aurobindo; fortheir place, keep some, is destroy or get rid of those one does not such faith the very hope want and conviction that the will of Sri Aurobindo put all one's imaginative power—what is bound to be done, that his work of transformation cannot but end called imaginative—only in a supreme victory those one wants and that which conform with one's highest aspiration. That is what he calls the supramental world will be brought down on earth and realised by us here and now? I call controlling one's imagination. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0309/power3-ofseptember-imagination1958#p2p1</ref>
= Imagination and Children =<center>~</center>
Children are not as "concretised", materialised ...a good deal of our life embodies the products of our imagination. Every time you indulge your imagination in their physical consciousness as older people—as one grows upan unhealthy way, it is as though one is coagulated giving a form to your fears and becomes more anticipating accidents and more gross in one's consciousness unless through a willed action one develops otherwisemisfortunes, you are undermining your own future. For instanceOn the other hand, the majority of children find it very difficult to distinguish their more optimistic your 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 to have some sort greater the chance of fits of fear or even of joy in their sleep, from dreamsyour realising your aim. Children are afraid Monsieur Coué got hold of all sorts this potent truth and cured hundreds of things which for older people don't exist any more. Their vision is not solely materialby simply teaching them to imagine themselves out of misery. They have a kind of perception, more or less exact and precise, of He once related the play case of the forces behinda lady whose hair was falling off. So, being in She began to suggest to herself that she was improving every day and that state they are influenced by forces which otherwise have no hold over people who are shut up in themselves her hair was surely growing. By constantly imagining it her hair really began to grow and more grosseven reached an enviable length owing to still further auto-suggestion. And these forces—the forces The power of destruction, for example, or forces of cruelty, forces of wickedness, of ill-will—all, all these things are mental formation is most useful in Yoga also; when the atmosphere. When one mind is more conscious and well-formed withinput in communication with the Divine Will, one can see that they are outside oneself the supramental Truth begins to descend through the layers intervening between the mind and deny them any expression. But when one is very young the highest Light and lives in a half-dreamif, on reaching the mind, these things can exercise much influence it finds there the power of making forms it easily becomes embodied and make children do things which stays as a creative force in their normal state they would not doyou. Therefore I believe it is due 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 above allthe latter may find you full of the necessary formations to hold its creative light. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0503/30power-decemberof-1953imagination#p3p1</ref>
= Practices =<center>~</center>
'''You Can Make a Marvel of Your World'''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>
...one must have a lively power of imagination, for―I seem to be telling you stupid things, but it is quite true―there is a world in which you are the supreme maker 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 or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55~</refcenter>
If one knows how Imagination, for instance, is when you begin to picture to yourself an ideal being to use whom you apply all your conceptions, and when you tell yourself, "Why, itshould be like this, like that, its form should be like this, its thought like that, as I saidits character like that, one can create for oneself his own inner " when you see all the details and outer life; one can build his own existence with his imaginationup the being. Now, if one knows how to use it and has writers do this all the time because when they write a powernovel, they imagine. In fact it is an elementary way of creatingThere are those who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative, creators; they create a character, of forming things a personage and then put him in the worldtheir book later. I have always felt that if one didn't have the capacity of imagination he would not make any progressThis is to imagine. Your imagination always goes ahead To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of your life. When you think circumstances, a set of yourselfevents, usually you imagine this is what you want I call telling a story to oneself. But it can be, don't youput down on paper, and this goes ahead, then you followone becomes a novelist. There are very different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, then it continues to go ahead some gather all sorts of observations from life and you followconstruct their book with them. Imagination opens for you the path There are a hundred ways of realisationwriting a book. People who are not imaginative—it is very difficult But indeed some writers imagine everything from beginning to make them move; end. It all comes out of their head and they see just what construct even their whole story without any support in things physically observed. This truly is there before their noseimagination. But as I say, they feel just what if they are moment by moment very powerful and they cannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends have a good deal on what considerable capacity for creation, it is possible that one calls imagination. However.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#p38p32</ref>
''Men = Yogic Understanding of science must be having imagination!''Imagination =
A lot. Otherwise they would never discover anything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity All human imaginations indeed correspond 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 possiblesome reality or real possibility, and unfortunately though they also have the power of making them come. It's like the antennae going into may in themselves be a world that's not yet realised, catching something there quite inaccurate representation or couched in too physical images and drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition therefore inapt to express 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 truth of the faculties one can develop in himself and render serviceable, that is, use it for definite purposessupraphysical realities. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0723/6the-planes-of-julyour-1955existence#p40p10</ref>
''Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?''<center>~</center>
Certainly if you succeed Imagination itself is in imagining its nature a substitute for a truer consciousness's faculty of intuition of possibility: as the Divine you have mind ascends towards the contacttruth-consciousness, this mental power becomes a truth imagination which brings the colour and you can have light of the higher truth into the limited adequacy or inadequacy of the contact with what you imagineknowledge already achieved and formulated and, finally, in any case. In fact the transforming light above it is absolutely impossible gives place wholly 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 higher truth-powers or itself turns into intuition and inspiration; the earth, it is possible Mind in that it's elsewhere, but it is impossible for you uplifting ceases to imagine something which be a creator of delusions and an architect of error. Mind then is not already contained in principle 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 universe; otherwise it could not occurresults of a limited knowledge or a half-ignorance. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0721/6the-cosmic-julyillusion-mind-dream-and-1955hallucination#p42p25</ref>
'''Seek Beyond the Manifestation'''<center>~</center>
The universe Our mind is progressive; we said an observer and user of actualities, a diviner or recipient of truths not yet known or actualised, a dealer in possibilities that constantly things manifest, more mediate between the truth and moreactuality. But for your it has not the omniscience of an infinite Consciousness; it is limited in knowledge and has to supplement its restricted knowledge by imagination to be able to go and seek beyond discovery. It does not, like the manifestation something which will be manifestedinfinite Consciousness, well, it may happenmanifest the known, in fact it does—I was going has to tell you that discover the unknown; it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable progress to be made in seizes the possibilities of the worldInfinite, because they have the capacity not as results or variations of forms of a latent Truth, but as constructions or creations, figments of imagining something that's not yet manifestedits own boundless imagination. But there are It has not many. One must first be capable the omnipotence of going beyond an infinite conscious Energy; it can only realise or actualise what the cosmic Energy will accept from it or what it has the manifested universe strength to be able to imagine something which is not there. There are already many impose or introduce into the sum of things because the secret Divinity, superconscient or subliminal, which can uses it intends that that should be imaginedexpressed in Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0721/6the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-julyand-1955hallucination#p44p22</ref> <center>~</center>
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''For Writers'''s 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, when we look into the origin of mental error, we find normally that it is a miscombination, misplacement, misuse, misunderstanding or misapplication of elements of experience and knowledge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p2</ref>
Imagination, for instance, is when 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 the details and build up the being. Now, 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 them. There are a hundred ways of writing a book. 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. 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. <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p32~</refcenter>
If you imagined something more beautifulThis at once raises the question of the nature of Mind, a more beautiful lifethe parent of these illusions, that would be worth and its relation to the troubleoriginal Existence. People who take pleasure in writing ugly things show Is mind the child and instrument of an original Illusion, or is it itself a great poverty of mind—it primal miscreating Force or Consciousness? or is always the mental ignorance a sign misprision of the truths of Existence, a poverty 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 mindof the same character must be, derivative, an instrumental demiurge, an intermediary creator. It is infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful likely then that analogies from beginning to end than to write a story ending with a sensational event or a catastrophe. Many authorsthe errors of mind, if they had to write a story which ends happily, beautifullyare the outcome of an intermediate Ignorance, would may not be able to do it—they do not have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have truly illustrate the nature or action of an uplifting endingoriginal creative Illusion, almost an all-inventing and all end in -constructing Maya. Our mind stands between a failure—for a very simple reasonsuperconscience 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 is much more easy to fall than to risereceives the figures of realised actualities and their suggestions of further possibility from the observed cosmic phenomenon. It is much more difficult to end one's story on a note What it receives are truths essential, possible or actual; it starts from the realised actualities of greatness the physical universe and splendour, it brings out from them in its subjective action the unrealised possibilities which they contain or suggest or to make one's hero which it can arrive by proceeding from them as a genius seeking to transcend himself, because starting-point: it selects some out of these possibilities for that one must be a genius oneselfsubjective 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 this is not given 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 everybodyrealise. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0421/26the-cosmic-illusion-mind-februarydream-and-1951hallucination#p23p21</ref>
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