Difference between revisions of "Imagination Compilation"
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<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...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</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#d9d9d9;">.</span> | <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">...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</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#d9d9d9;">.</span> | ||
− | <div style="color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55</div> | + | <div style="color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55</u></ref></div> |
<div style="color:#000000;">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...</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">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...</div> | ||
− | <div style="color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p38</div> | + | <div style="color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p38</u></ref></div> |
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<div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | ||
− | <div style="color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40</div> | + | <div style="color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40</u></ref></div> |
<div style="color:#000000;">''Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?''</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">''Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact?''</div> | ||
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<div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | ||
− | <div style="color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p42</div> | + | <div style="color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p42</u></ref></div> |
=== Seek Beyond the Manifestation === | === Seek Beyond the Manifestation === | ||
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<div style="color:#000000;">The universe is progressive; 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 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.</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">The universe is progressive; 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 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.</div> | ||
− | <div style="color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p44</div> | + | <div style="color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p44</u></ref></div> |
=== For Writers === | === For Writers === | ||
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<div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | ||
− | http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p32 | + | <ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p32</u></ref> |
<div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | <div style="color:#000000;">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.</div> | ||
− | <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-february-1951#p23</span> | + | <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><ref><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-february-1951#p23</u></ref></span> |
<div style="color:#000000;"> </div> | <div style="color:#000000;"> </div> |
Revision as of 19:03, 14 August 2018
Contents
What Is Imagination
Nature of Imagination
… 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, 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. [8]
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. [9]
Source of Imagination
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.
Vital Mind and Imagination
.[13]
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.[16]5
Different Types of Imaginations
Truth-imagination
Mental Imaginations Arising from an Ordinary Level
Luminous Formations and Dark Formations
Misuse of Imagination
Acts in a Random and Excessive Way Without Discipline
Giving a Form to Your Fears
Wrong Thinking and Illness
Imagination and Yoga
Imagination and Children
Practices
You Can Make a Marvel of Your World
...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.
Seek Beyond the Manifestation
For Writers
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-ego-and-self-experience#p15
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p25
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination#p1
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p25
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p24
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p22
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p24
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p25
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/24-june-1953#p59
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-planes-of-our-existence#p10
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p20
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p16
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/accidents-possession-madness#p32
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p21
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-cosmic-illusion-mind-dream-and-hallucination#p2
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p7
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p9
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/3-september-1958#p1
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-vital-being-and-vital-consciousness#p18
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination#p1
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p1
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p23
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/wrong-thinking-and-illness#p1
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/power-of-imagination#p2
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-december-1953#p3
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p38
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p40
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p42
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p44
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/6-july-1955#p32
- ↑ http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-february-1951#p23