Powers of Imagination

When we reach the "darkest hour," the time when our pain becomes intense, we inevitably turn to our minds for assistance. Some of us focus our thoughts only on the impending doom and gloom, while some of us focus on imagining ourselves overcoming the problems causing the doom and gloom.

Imagination is a powerful tool for expressing enlightenment. For us to use this great power, we must have a disciplined mind and unwavering confidence in ourselves. And at the basic core of our beliefs, we  must believe in our own abilities, independent of the judgments and criticisms of others.

For many of us, this means we must recognize that everything that happens in our lives comes from our beliefs and values. Some people refer to them as "stored consciousness" or subconsciousness.

Nevertheless, our beliefs and values control our imagination. And most of us are always imagining something. It seems that our desultory desires keep us in a perpetual state of motion, which affect our powers to imagine.

For those of us who are able to discipline our minds to imagine ourselves with great power, we awaken this great power within our minds to remove the distortions created by our toxic desires. And this power is all we need to rebuild our minds with enlightened beliefs and values.

The mythologies of religion and spirituality, at least religion and spirituality born from toxic beliefs and values, confuse us about our own identity and power. Some of us become too dependent on the teachings and forget that all power comes from our minds.

All of the great ones have taught that the "Kingdom of Heaven is within you." And not to look for it in another person. This means that each individual has within his or her mind the power of a sleeping Jesus Christ or Buddha.  However, some of us continue to search for this great power outside of us.

No one can give us what they don't have to give. Who can give us peace other than the beliefs and values in our minds.

Nevertheless, when we clear our minds to imagine goodness in others, we unleash the power of transmission within our minds. This is the power that will attract into our lives that same goodness we imagine in others.

Unfortunately, the converse is if we imagine others as being deceitful, angry, greedy, and so forth, then we attract these types of people into our lives. So it's not an accident when we meet people that cause us to suffer. We brought them into our lives by imagining their type of behavior in others.

Similarly, we can always image ourselves with great power. We don't have to assume that the outcomes in our lives will always been less than what we are capable of producing with the proper mindset. In other words, we can imagine having a hefty bank account just as easy as we can imagine having a paltry one.

Meanwhile, if we begin to imagine ourselves as being already enlightened or with the Christ-Buddha-Krishna power in our minds, then we become that which we imagine ourselves to be. This is similar to imagining ourselves being poor or rich, handsome or ugly, and other toxic manifestations.

All we are doing is using our imagination to confirm what we already believe about ourselves and others. The power we seek is found within our minds. We can never find it in another person.

Now is the time to search for enlightenment within our own minds. We know it's there, but we must gain the confidence to imagine ourselves with this power.

"Therefore, get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding."