PURE IMAGINATION

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world?
There's nothing to it    ~Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse, PURE IMAGINATION, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"

Imagination is essential in the art of manifestation

Jean Houston recalled a story of her childhood:

Back when I was eight years old, I was attending a school in Manhattan where they felt it was a good idea for students to meet some of the great elders of the time. One of those elders was Albert Einstein, and one day we trotted across the river over to Princeton University to his house there. He had a lot of hair and was very sweet. One of my smart-alecky classmates said to him: "Uh, Mr. Einstein, how can we get to be as smart as you?" He said: "Read fairy tales,” which made no sense to us at all. So another smart-alecky kid said: "Mr. Einstein, how can we get to be smarter than you?" He said: "Read more fairy tales!"  

Why?

Imagination is essential in the art of manifestation

Now you may say, “I've put away childish things.” But remember this from Professor Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.

Or you may think, “I deal with facts, not fantasy, delusion or hallucination.” And I would say to you that you are right it is not a fact, though it's a precursor to one. Check out this quote from Professor Morrison from the University of St. Andrews:

...life itself is an activity of imagining. ...the world originates in a divine activity identical with what we know ourselves as the activity of imagination … [the task being] to open the immortal eyes of man inward into the worlds of thought, into eternity, ever expanding in the bosom of God, the Human Imagination. Reality is not stable or immutable, it is an endless Becoming, and only by imaginatively projecting yourself into that flux, giving yourself up to it, could you ever discover what it really is.

Imagination is not something we see in our present circumstance, out there; though that may be an influence to our use of imagination. It's something found in our next circumstance, reached from within. Imagination is a reflective exercise, like contemplation. It's also a spiritual practice, as in visualizing the end result and how you feel about it is the fuel behind the maifestation of that idea your are seeking. Though I caution you to leave the "how's gonna get there" of it alone.

Now I can hear someone tell me, "Well, I'm a left-brain person – logical, analytical, objective intelligence is my game.” Check this out from Christopher Bergland in "Psychology Today:"

Researchers measured the participants' brain activity with functional MRI and found a cortical and subcortical network over a large part of the brain was responsible for their imagery manipulations. The network closely resembles the "mental workspace" that scholars have theorized might be responsible for much of human conscious experience and for the flexible cognitive abilities that humans have evolved over millennia.

That whole Roger Sperry idea of left and right brain dominance was debunked by University of Utah, Salt Lake City neuroscientists with their handy functional MRI. The conclusion:

...we demonstrate that left- and right-lateralized networks are homogeneously stronger among a constellation of hubs in the left and right hemispheres, but that such connections do not result in a subject-specific global brain lateralization difference that favors one network over the other (i.e. left-brained or right-brained). 

Imagination is essential in the art of manifestation

Imagination pushes you to unlearn what you’ve been told, ask different questions, and grow beyond who you thought you were. Asking questions about your day is an optimal way to step into your best day. The best questions get the best answers. Imagination is also a huge part of the solution mechanism in crisis-management, experimentation and hypothesizing in all the sciences. Nikola Tesla was all about the imagination and imagery. The only reason he wrote any of his ideas or invention plans was so others could build it and he could get patents for them.

And from the back I hear, "It's bad enough I have to dream, other than waste time daydreaming.” I think William Shakespeare said it best in "The Tempest" when Prospero spoke:

…we are such stuff as dreams are made on.

In fact, none-other than Carl Jung emphasized the importance of dreams to the unconscious mind. It is a creative time. Keith Richards came up with “Satisfaction” while dreaming. Not a bad piece of work for a nights sleep. But I'm not asking you to dream or daydream. They are imaginative times and a first step to creating your next now. I'm asking you to use your creativity to....well....since you love logic so much, let's quote Mr. Logic, Thomas Troward, the former British judge who turned to writing metaphysics in his retirement. From his book, "The Creative Process in the Individual," we learn:

Now what we require to see is the Creative Process has only one way of working, and that is by Reciprocity or Reflection – or as we might say by the Law of Reaction and Action, the action always being equivalent and correspondent to the action which generated it.

Our imagination sets up the mental equivalent of a picture which the Creative Process uses like a mirror to reflect what it is to manifest into your life. Your reaction, feelings, about what it is you desire is reciprocated by the Universe into an action into your experience. It's like the thoughts become things idea. When you use your imagination to fuel your next experience you use your full brain and the Divine Matrix (head, heart, gut brains) to transform into a full-on state of mind. That's what the Law of Cause and Effect will read to create your life. So, go ahead and brainstorm; take a deep dive into the infinite possibilities of your imagination. Envision your next adventure into the now. It is the icing on the cake of demonstration.

Imagination is also the language of the "eureka" or "ah-ha" moment. The brain is a dynamic workplace; all 3 pounds, 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections of it. So use it to bring into your life your greatest experiences.

Now, here are ways to inspire your imagination. The first one may surprise you.

1) Exercise
Surprisingly enough, exercise inspires imagination. Ralph Waldo Emerson said of Henry David Thoreau who you may remember moved to the country, Walden's Pond, to experience nature more and write about it. Emerson said:

The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not write at all.

Novelist, Henry Miller, an avid endurance cyclist, said this about exercising and writing:

...most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game or whatever. . .You're working, your mind is working on this problem in the back of your head. So, when you get back to the machine it's a mere matter of transfer.

And Joyce Carol Oates, another novelist and devoted runner, tells us:

Running seems to allow me, ideally, an ex- panded consciousness in which I can envision what I'm writing as a film or a dream. I rarely invent at the typewriter, but recall what I've experienced. 

2) Seek Adventure
New experiences and hobbies help build neural pathways in the brain. Take a class! It will get your imagination fresh ideas.

3) Challenge Perception
Visual perception is 80% memory and 20% input from your eyes. We must develop our imagination by looking without our eyes and see with our other senses. Those who have taken my spiritual mind treatment (affirmative prayer) workshop may remember the idea of experiencing in mind all the senses about an idea, even if the idea of tasting or smelling this experience seems odd. What it does is empowers that idea, gives it depth and dimension. Christopher Berger, the lead author of a study at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, published in the scientific journal Current Biology about imagination and the senses:

 ...what this study shows is that our imagination of a sound or a shape changes how we perceive the world around us in the same way actually hearing that sound or seeing that shape does. Specifically, we found that what we imagine hearing can change what we actually see, and what we imagine seeing can change what we actually hear.

4) Voice it
Get out there and sing, share, tell a story, read a fairy tale out loud, listen to an audiobook or such things. Our voice is connected to emotion and emotion is connected to the imagination and all are connected to the power of manifestation.

5) Play
Be a kid again at least one hour a day, star gaze and other such activities. As Neville Goddard, who wrote extensively about imagination said:

Imagination is a spiritual sensation. Enter the image of the wish fulfilled, then give it sensory vividness and tones of reality by mentally acting as you would act were it a physical fact.

When you change your perspective and perception, you change your life. For clear and present certainty, using imagination is the fuel to changing your outlook, your attitude and your experiences.

Okay, how does this connect with Fathers Day, the summer solstice (happy summer, pull out those white pants) or Juneteenth? Well, like a father, imagination takes sacrifice, responsibility, nurturing and devotion. Like a father, imagination is about embracing the responsibility of nurturing and raising the child or manifestation of your future. It''s also similar in that one is sacrificing old ideas to devote ourselves to a family...of thoughts, feelings and beliefs that transform prosperous ideas into form.

Like what Juneteenth, which commemorates emancipation, imagination frees you from the bondage of that master called lack, limitation, dis-ease, and not enough-ness. Free of those ideas running around in our heads, we can manifest more happiness, health, loving relationships, and prosperity.

Finally, like the planet during the summer solstice, imagination tilts us towards the Great Light, warmly illuminating our consciousness with wisdom and inspiration; as well as suntan oil, dancing, a mojito, watermelon, and BBQ. Good times!

Being in quarantine does not stop our minds from working.

Being out of work does not stop our wisdom from working.

Being stuck indoors does not stop our connection with the Divine

So too, imagination doesn't go away because you've allow yourself to be enslaved by worry or some misguided idea of fate or destiny. It is there for you to play with and transcend make-believe into do-believe. It is there to stimulate the forward progress of your dreams and desires and give birth to the evolution, revolution, resolution, and distribution of your greatest life.

Happy Father's Day to all of you, no matter your gender. You are the mother-father-God or your experiences. Happy day to an imagination -your imagination- that creates your next reality today.



Affirmation
Imagine being supported by a Universe that always says yes
Imagine being protected by an energy of love and affection
Imagine a wall of trust and security surrounding me
Imagine encouragement and inspiration at my every turn
Imagine being accepted and appreciated exactly as I am
I can imagine that and I live it today.
And so it is.