Imagination is distortion, fabrication, and mithyā (मिथ्या), but it still has an important place in shaping your life. Before you can begin to see all things simply, you have to get skillful at navigating the complexity of imagination. Using your imagination you begin to see solutions to problems in your world.

Usually you construct your goals to counter and overcome problems in your world, so visualising a solution activates the cognitive circuits involved in those knowledge-centres of the brain and calls forth latent memories conducive to a solution. When you imagine favourable outcomes or solutions to problems, the wealth of subconscious knowledge is called forth by the mind, which always demonstrates remarkable sagacity in the choice of means it then employs to move you swiftly towards your destination. Imagination, then, ceases to be mere distortion and becomes a potent tool of self-actualisation. Creative people are able to generate a vivid image of the object of their imagination and then hold it at the front of their mind, where they may scrutinise every aspect of its design and every detail of its construction, rearranging their characteristics and directing the mise en scène to represent the particular spiritual or emotional state they seek.

Imagination doesn't take the conventional route of ordinary causality in realising itself, but seems to translate into its own language and cast in its own mould the perceptions incident from the outside. It is a spontaneity that follows the universal sequence and ordering of all things and may only be directed through reflection. When you reflect, you recall past images, sensations, perceptions, and conceptions so that you may shape them up into a coherent whole, an object, or an end. Along the way, you use your judgement to recognise novel representations from the conceptions that you already have available to you. So properly exercising your imagination keeps your mind in order and reduces its capacity for distortion. How skilled you become at this art is contingent upon your positivity, energy, and discipline.

Get this podcard