Imagine That!

"Does this kind of thing really do any good?" Julie asks me. She's looking for a new house to rent. Along with all of the usual methods, like asking friends, looking at Craigslist and the classifieds, and calling agents, she's also doing a process of visioning: imagining herself happily puttering around in a sun-filled, spacious, two-bedroom house with a country view and a price she can afford.

Julie raises an important question: Is it really possible that imagination can influence outcomes in the "real" world? In other words, is what Julie is doing a genuinely effective act, or is she just indulging in plain old fantasy?

The answer? It could be either.

Despite Picasso's famous statement that "Anything you can imagine is real," most rational adults recognize a fundamental distinction between "real" and "imaginary." "Real" is the consensus reality that most people live in, where what goes up must come down, and two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time. Unlike the residents of the Hindu and Buddhist heaven worlds or the Jet Li character in the film Hero who fights an entire battle in his imagination, few of us can manifest our intentions simply by imagining them into existence. No amount of wanting or imagining will get you a new job or cure your ulcer if you don't take the practical steps to make it happen.

But even a skeptic might recognize that the reverse is also true. Imagination always precedes transformation. Every important change you've made in your life—inner or outer—started with an act of imagination. The journey that led my friend Greg to a radical spiritual awakening began when he read a novel about Tibetan yogis, and imagined what it would be like to have extrasensory powers. We could say that he was fantasizing, but his fantasies led him to begin a meditation practice.

Imagination—our ability to create images not available to the sensory system—is arguably our greatest faculty for evolving human consciousness. In order to transform ourselves and our world, we need to be able to leap out of the familiar and into the unknown. The first step in doing this is to imagine a future different from the past, a self-sense different from the one we have now. Of course, we are shaped by our memories, by our karmas, and by the patterns woven into our neurons and cells. Undeniably, we're also influenced by our culture and physical circumstances. Some of these factors are hard to change. But the imagination can help us begin to replace our internal patterns, especially the ones that keep us limited and stuck. If we can re-imagine our sense of who we are, we can change our experience of life. Yoga is all about what happens when we recognize this truth. If you can imagine yourself, say, free of suffering, you've taken the first step towards that freedom.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, the author and child development expert, writes, "Physiologically superior to ordinary 'eye-seeing', imagination comes in from higher up 'the evolutionary stream' of vision, and even employs a higher, purer form of light.... Rather than the senses impacting the mind with imagery, as in ordinary seeing, through imagination the mind impacts the senses with imagery."

What Pearce means by 'higher up the evolutionary stream' is that the subtler levels of imagination sit relatively close to the original source of creativity. That original source has been described in a number of different ways—as the great mind, the collective unconscious, the field of all possibility, divine intelligence, the Tao. Acts of imagination can connect us to that mysterious place where insight and inspiration arrive unbidden—as an out-of-the-box idea, as the first line of a poem, as a direct recognition of who we are beyond our ordinary self-definitions. Imagination links us to infinite possibility, the realm from which all genuine creative insights arise. Great poets and scientific thinkers have repeatedly described the mystery of breakthrough the way John Keats did, when he said that his greatest poems were "given to me," by a "power like magic." Spiritual voyagers have similar experiences of the power of that inner realm. Imagination is the doorway into that realm beyond ordinary consciousness. As such, it is an evolutionary tool of the highest order.

According to the tantric master Abhinava Gupta, imagination is not just powerful, it is power itself. The human capacity to imagine, says tantra, is simply our individual form of the power of the infinite consciousness, the infinite mind. That great mind imagines worlds within itself, say the tantric sages, and brings them into existence. Our own imaginative power does the same thing on a smaller scale.

Yoga Vasistha, a key text of Vedanta that pre-figures quantum physics and string theory, describes our so-called Real World as a creation of imagination made of solidified consciousness, or subtle energy, which each of us holds in place by believing in it. This same text consistently maintains that a yogi who understands this principle and cultivates it can re-arrange these particles of mind-stuff and manifest just about anything. One reason why a text like Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi fascinates generations of yoga practitioners because it is filled with stories of men and women who could bilocate themselves, travel to other worlds, change the destinies of disciples simply by the power of their focused attention and will. Most of us aren't operating at anywhere near that level, of course. More likely, our imaginations operate unconsciously, as unexamined fantasies and stray thought-constructs. By practicing what I call the yoga of imagination, we can learn how to use our divine gift for fantasy as a creative tool for transformation.

The Random, the Constructed and the Self-Transformative

Sanskrit, the original language of yogic transformation, excels at finding precise words for the subtle nuances of consciousness, much as the language of the Inuit excels at finding words for different varieties of snow. To understand the yogic wisdom on the imagination, it helps to look at four Sanskrit words that distinguish between types of imaginative experience. Taken together, these ancient terms can be used as a map that shows how the imaginative faculty works, and how we can engage it, train it, and receive its gifts.

The four Sanskrit words for imagination are Vikalpa (random images and fantasies); Kalpana (intentional mental creations); Pratibha (spontaneous visionary insight); and Bhavana (yogic contemplation and visioning).

Random Fantasy

Vikalpa, which is basic mental fantasy, accounts for most of your imaginative experience. Vikalpas are the fanciful images, thoughts, and mental static that play randomly through the mind. The sexual fantasy that shows up at the wrong time. The fears of possible burglars in the closet. The things you imagine your friends are saying behind your back. In fact, most of the contents of your mind fall into this category. Yogic texts warn against falling for the stories produced by your vikalpas, and they all have the same advice: let them go. Classical yoga practice aims to dissolve these vikalpas—whether we do it by meditative focus or by a practice like recognizing them as essentially empty.

Deliberate or Constructive Imagination

With kalpana, the second type of imagination, we enter the realm of deliberate creation. A kalpana, because it's intentional, has far more purpose and power than an idle or uncontrolled vikalpa. Our kalpanas are the foundation of human art and science—as well as of mythology, religious constructs, and political and military strategies, and the fictions that sometimes seem to drive our culture. Since kalpanas tend to take on a life of their own (anyone who writes fiction knows that moment when the characters start speaking for themselves), we often find ourselves having to untangle the threads of what seemed at first like an innocent mental creation. Thus the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for" could be re-phrased as "Be careful what you imagine!"

The tantric traditions are especially skilled at this type of constructed imagination. They use visualization for opening inner centers ("Imagine a full moon in the center of your head"), for removing psychological impurities ("Visualize anger leaving your body as a stream of black smoke"), for creating intimacy with higher energies ("Find yourself on an island where the trees have jeweled leaves. Sitting on a throne under a tree, you see a wise and beautiful guide.") Nowadays, of course, we have lots of exposure to the idea of using the active imagination. We take guided journeys to inner worlds, do life-visioning processes like Julie's, visualize light filling our bodies to strengthen our immune system. Studies increasingly confirm that these imaginative constructions are good for our health and even for developing skills: young basketball players are instructed to practice their jump shots in their mind, and it turns out that this imaginary practice improves performance on the court. Similarly, studies have shown that piano students who imagined themselves playing scales improved their playing as if they had been doing physical practice.

The psychologist Carl Jung taught a method of kalpana that he called Active Imagination, meant to integrate the conscious and unconscious elements in the human personality. His patients would construct fantasies of mythical journeys, or conversations between different inner characters. Then, they would consciously take part in the fantasies, and by making them active and conscious, evolve the hidden aspects of themselves to a higher level.

Visionary Imagination: A Gift from the Infinite

At the third level, imagination frees itself from the personal mind, and begins to open up to the higher realms. We are receiving downloads from a higher, more numinous level of the self. In Sanskrit, this level of imagination is called pratibha, literally inspiration or insight, the inspiration that arises or flashes forth from beyond the conscious mind.

Pratibha is the true creative imagination. This is the imagination Keats experienced. Einstein, the great chemist Kekule, and the mathematician Poincaré all received major insights in this manner. Mozart would famously hear music playing within himself, and simply take dictation. We've all had such moments. The sentences of your term paper or grant proposal begin to flow on their own. You're struggling to understand some difficult

problem, when suddenly a telling image flashes into your mind, or you simply, inexplicably, know . A brilliant light shows up in your meditation. Your perspective enlarges, until you're able, in the poet William Blake's words, to "see the world in a grain of sand."

One way you know you're experiencing higher imagination is that the content has a different quality than imaginings we make up for ourselves. An image or vision may be infused with a brighter quality of color and light. An insight may come with the force of authority. The poem or the story unfolds as if it were being dictated. Sometimes, when we have a vision in meditation, we wonder, "Was that real, or did I make it up?" When it comes from the prathibha level of imagination, there's a sense that the vision or insight arises from a realm that you don't ordinarily access.

Re-Imagining the Self

Visionary imagination comes to us on its own. But yogis court it through visualizations—kalpana practice, and especially through the process called bhavana , or creative contemplation. Bhavana is the most powerful tool we have for internal self-creation. It lets us re-imagine the self.

The word bhavana comes from bhava , a Sanskrit word meaning "feeling," or "emotional flavor." Bhavana works with the power of your emotions to radically re-order your internal experience of yourself. In the world of tantra, where the power of mind is recognized as identical with the universal creative power, bhavana is used to create a sense of identity with the divine itself. A true bhavana combines idea, vision and feeling. It's the emotional quality that gives a bhavana its power. One of the most famous tantric bhavanas asks you to imagine being in the presence of someone you love, then focusing on the feeling the image brings up in you. You take that further by imagining the feeling of love filling your body, dwelling strongly in the felt sense of love in your body. Then, you might anchor yourself in the feeling, and act from it. The power of that imaginative combination of visualization and emotion will shift your inner experience—at least while you are practicing it. This is why an imaginative practice like remembering a happy moment, or cultivating a felt sense of gratitude, has such power to create well-being.

But the yogic sages take the idea of bhavana much deeper. My teacher used to say that when you hold the bhavana that you are a limited person with limited options, you will continue to experience yourself as limited by your body and personal history. When you replace your ordinary self-imagining with the highest and most sublime one you can find, you'll begin to experience yourself as filled with divine qualities. This is why, in the tantric traditions, you always start your practice with a radical re-imagining of the self. You would imagine your body as made of light, or infused with mantra, or filled with infinite compassion. From there, you begin your practice.

The ultimate tantric bhavana is to imagine yourself as the incarnation of grandeur, the very form of God. The affirmations "I am the Absolute," "I am That," "I am divine love itself" are imaginative constructions, but they work because they encourage you to identify yourself with a higher truth, and then to feel how that impacts your inner experience, your body, and your sense of self.

A truly profound imaginative bhavana lets you rehearse what it would be like to actually live and act as the self you know in your heart you really are—a divine self, a self whose power comes naturally from within, and who acts for the sake of the good. If you're spending time during your day imagining yourself as filled with compassion, it doesn't take long to notice that you speak to people differently, and even treat yourself with much more subtlety and kindness.

Imagination at its heart lets us find our way into our highest possibilities. Training the imagination, harnessing its power, we can use it for creating beauty and truth in the world. Then our acts of transformative imagination become genuine acts of power. They can change our inner state, for sure. But they can also change the world.

Exercise:

Imagine Yourself As an Enlightened Sage

Set aside half an hour.

Begin by calling to mind a sage or saint, or another human being you deeply admire. It should be someone you have a feeling for, and whose teachings you understand—Jesus, or Buddha, even Gandhi, St Teresa of Avila, the Baal Shem Tov, or your own teacher, if that teacher was a reliable example of enlightenment.

If no one comes to mind, choose one of the qualities of enlightened consciousness—love, or compassion, or equanimity.

Now, think deeply about that person, or the quality you want to embody. If it's a person, consider how it might have been to look through their eyes. If a quality, ask yourself, "How would it be at this moment to look through the eyes of love?" Ask yourself, "How did this being treat others? How might they have handled themselves if they were doing your life (yes, what WOULD Jesus do!). Suppose they faced a challenge, a big conflict, the desertion of someone close to them? How would they handle that?

Now, close your eyes and imagine that the spirit of that person, or of that quality, inhabits your body. Feel their heart as your heart, their mind as your mind.

Inhale, thinking to yourself, "Christ's love lives within me, as my love," or "Buddha's state of enlightenment is my enlightenment," or "The courage of Gandhi is my courage." Exhale, thinking, "Their inner state fills my body."

Do this for a few moments. Then ask yourself, "How would I move through the world if I truly embodied the qualities of this being? How would I treat myself? How would I be with my partner? My kids? My parents? People on the bus? How would I eat? What would it be like to interact with others?

Let your imagination totally open to this. Make the leap of imagining yourself enlightened, love-saturated.

For the remainder of the half hour, act out of that experience. BE the great being you're imagining yourself to be. Act out the quality you want to imbibe. Do this for half an hour each day for a week, and see if you notice the effect.