Creating Using Visualization
by Gus Fowler
 Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the
rewards of success. Today, we are going to talk about creative
visualization, that is, the technique of using your imagination to
create what you want in your life. There is nothing new, strange, or
unusual about creative visualization. You are already using it every
day. It is your natural power of imagination, the basic creative energy
of the universe.
The purpose of visualization is to learn to use the imagination to
create an idea or mental picture in your mind. You know that the chair
on which you sit, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the
automobile you drive was first a picture in someone's mind before it
became a reality in your outer world. Poets, artist-writers, and
creative people of all kinds receive ideas through visualization.
In the past, many of us have used our power of creative
visualization in a relatively unconscious way. Because of our
deep-seated negative concepts about life, we have automatically through
our use of imagination, created such difficulties as lack, limitation,
unhappy relationships and other problems in life. What we want to do
today is to learn how to create what we want instead of what we don't
want in our lives.
One might theorize that the creative process consists of four
stages, a theory that is prevalent in many mystical teachings and that
is widely accepted by researchers in the field of creativity. These
four stages are based on the accounts of famous people's creative
experiences.
When you concentrate your thoughts on such problems as limitation,
sickness, unpleasant relationships, poverty, you are adding energy and
creative power to those unwanted conditions in your body and affairs.
By emptying your mind of these unwanted thoughts and concentrating
on higher thoughts of love, health, happiness, prosperity and peace,
you attune your mind with the Cosmic, and this in turn will be
reproduced as harmonious conditions in your body and affairs. It is no
secret that we tend to attract to ourselves, and to become attracted
toward, people, circumstances, and situations which are like the images
we hold in our thoughts. If you think about and identify yourself with
happiness, you will attract happiness in your life. But it is
impossible to be successful and happy while you think about, identify
yourself with, and hold an image in our mind of failure and sadness.
Let's take a little time and put into practice this second stage of
visualization. First set your goal, that is decide what it is you want
to manifest in your outer world. Make a list, write it down, then
prioritize your list and decide on one thing you are going to
concentrate on during this period. You must have a single definite
purpose in mind. One of the most serious mistakes that one makes is
trying to combine several desires in one act of concentration. Second,
your motive must include some benefit for others as well as yourself;
and Third, consider whether the thing you seek to gain through
concentration is deserved. That is, does the thing we seek belong to
us, or would it violate God's infinite law of cause and effect. Third,
communicate, that is, make known your request to the cosmic. This is
called attunement. By attuning yourself with the cosmic, you are trying
to bring that small part of god that is within you, in touch with the
greater source. By holding thoughts of good, the good within you acts
like a magnet attracting into your life and affairs the thing you have
concentrated on.
The four stages are: Preparation, Concentration, Relaxation and Meditation.
So let's start with the First stage which is preparation. As
you prepare to approach the Cosmic you must do so not only with a clean
physical body but with a clean and purified consciousness. Until we
cleanse our heart and mind and dispose of such things as criticism,
doubt, jealousy, hatred and fear, we need not expect to co-mingle
intimately with such God-like qualities as good health, joy, peace and
prosperity or to have such qualities manifest in our lives as a result
of visualization.
Now that is not a new concept to Rosicrucians, for we were taught in
the early degrees to wash the hands and drink a glass of water to
symbolize cleanliness, before going into our home sanctum. And as part
of the ritual after entering the Sanctum we request the divine essence
of the Cosmic to infuse our being and clean us of all impurities of
mind and body that we may commune in pureness and worthiness.
Take a few moments now and think about whether or not you are worthy
to approach the cosmic for assistance in your visualization. Clear your
mind and heart of criticism, hatred, jealousy and doubt. If you have
wronged anyone apologize to that person in your mind now. When you have
a clear conscious you are ready to proceed to the next step.)
The Second stage is concentration. Concentration is a process
of stilling irrelevant thoughts so that the mind may add strength by
directing all its attention to the one thing desired. Truly to
concentrate means to have one absorbing idea at a time, to think of it
to the exclusion of everything else, and then let your entire life, for
the time being, cooperate with your concentration to bring into
realization the thing that you desire.
The Third stage in the process of visualization is
relaxation. Once you have concentrated on your desire and petitioned
the Cosmic for help, you should relax and give thanks in confidence
that the Cosmic will bring you in touch with the persons, the events,
and the opportunity necessary for the fulfillment of your desire.
Instead of worrying anxiously about problems, seek a quiet place, relax
and be receptive. The Master Jesus said, "What things you desire when
you pray, believe you have received them and you shall have them." Did
you notice he used the past tense? When practicing the use of
visualization, we must be sure that our image is in the present or past
tense, and not in the future tense. The image you are concentrating on
should be complete and in the present now. If you do not focus sharply
and let go abruptly, you delay the final outcome. Once you focus
sharply, you should let go abruptly, so that there is no scattering of
forces from a slow withdrawal. A slow withdrawal invites a myriad of
extraneous thoughts to flood back into the picture, thus causing the
clear, focalized image we had to deteriorate into a conglomerate,
ineffective thought pattern.
Regardless of what you are concentrating on, believe that you
receive, and you shall have. If your request is for wisdom, believe,
relax and give thanks that you are illumined, that you know what to do,
that your way is clear before you. If your request is for healing,
believe, give thanks, then relax in the realization that a healing work
is being done. Forget about the illness, but act as if you were well
and healthy.
The Fourth and last stage in visualization is meditation.
Meditation is that state when we are silent, passive, open and
receptive. The object of meditation is to remove all thoughts from the
objective mind and become attuned with the Cosmic. In such an
attunement you lose all awareness of self and the objective world
around you. The mind is quiet and it is at such time that the Cosmic
speaks through the still small voice within to inspire us with ideas
that will enable us to achieve our desires. So when you make known your
request to the Cosmic, instead of asking for a list of material
blessings, ask for illumination in order that you may be shown how to
use your talents and abilities to obtain your desires. We know that the
Cosmic does not bestow objects of materiality upon us simply because we
desire them. You must be aware of the Law of Compensation and know that
you must give if you wish to receive.
So if you wish to use this tool of creative visualization, you
should first prepare yourself to receive by presenting yourself to the
Cosmic in a clean, worthy state. Second, determine exactly what
you desire; and concentrate your thoughts on that desire with the
realization that your dominating thoughts will reproduce themselves in
physical form. Third, relax, let go and let God with a thankful heart that you have received; and Fourth, in a state of mediation, listen to the direction of the still small voice within and act on the ideas received.
(Let's take a few moments now to bring your desire into focus,
concentrate on it, release it abruptly, relax and be receptive: As we
close with a brief period of meditation.)
TECHNIQUES OF VISUALIZATION
Now it is time to relax and enjoy visualizing. To understand
the techniques of visualization one must be able to use his/her
imagination, in order to create what you want in life. There is nothing
new, strange or unusual about visualization. You are already using it
every day in your work or play. At work you visualize the successful
completion of the day's work or project you're working on. At play you
see the completion of the game and you are the winner. Every thing you
see on the physical plane was at one time the mental picture in
someone's mind.
One must not expect to receive
visualization immediately, but practice makes perfect. One must
practice daily and allow time for the cosmic laws to work naturally and
not ask the cosmic to violate the natural law just for you. One must be
alert to listen to intuitive ideas, other impressions you may receive
during your visualization and take actions, which will lead to the
completion of your goal.
Visualization emerges in various and sometime subtle ways. Some
people do not see pictures. Some people hear sounds or words and have
feelings about the things they are visualizing. They can feel the
presences of being at the place or doing the thing they are
visualizing, without seeing a picture. Since all pictures, colors and
sounds are simply different rates of vibrations, feelings will work
just as well as a picture. Feeling the presence of being there or doing
the thing visualized is a condensed picture of the different vibratory
rates of color, sound and picture, and gives emotional power to the
visualization. The variation in visualization occurs because people's
minds work differently. I have found it helpful to describe my
visualization out loud: it helps me to paint the picture in full
detail. Also, the spoken word has power in itself and changes the
vibratory rate of the surroundings where it is spoken. However, fixed
expectations or worries about whether you're doing it right tend to
block visualizations. The idea is to be completely open and your mind
be receptive to whatever impressions you may receive. As a child we
played a game called let's pretend. We pretended to be doctors,
teachers, ministers, mothers, fathers, etc and we acted out the part as
though it were real. As the master Jesus said, "to enter the Kingdom of
heaven you must be born again". What he really meant was you must
become as a small child believing that whatever you want you can have
the thing you desire.
Now it is the time for you to relax and enjoy visualizing
A ritual to assist you in successful visualization is to locate a
place where you will not be disturbed and there is a comfortable chair
or a lounge chair to sit in. The location should not be a room
associated with sleep. You must not go to sleep. If you are tired and
sleepy do not try to visualize because it requires a lot of energy and
concentration. Secondly, you must have something in mind that you
strongly desire before beginning the visualization. You must think only
positive thoughts, otherwise, you will be bring into existence negative
things. Master Jesus said, "Enter into your private place to pray".
What he really meant was to enter the still state. Also Master Jesus
said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within". Here again, he is talking
about the still state.
What is the still state? The still stated is a
state of mind when the body is completely relaxed but the mind is still
alert, focused on a goal and attuned to the energies of the universe.
To achieve this still state you must remove the limitation blocks in
your subconscious mind. You have
probably heard the expression "The master will appear when the student
is ready." In fact, you are already a master yourself but suffering
under many illusions or self inflicted limitations. By removing the
limitations the master within is released.
When you do visualization in the still state,
your subconscious mind immediately creates your desire on the astral
plane. However the more you practice
visualization the quicker these goals manifest on the material plane.
For this reason you must think only positive thoughts, otherwise you
will be bringing into existence negative things. Don't say things like
I will catch a cold if I sit in a draft, I will not get the job
because, John doesn't like me because, convocation won't start on time,
etc., because these are negative thoughts and will drive the negative
idea deeper into your subconscious mind.
Remember you have spent many years in your world of illusions and
the negative emotion fixation: fear, jealousy, hate, stealing, greed. Inferiority complex, and conscious limitations must be removed before
you can reach the higher levels of mastership. This is where you must
start. Effort, hard work, time and desire are mastery and soon it will
be yours.
This article was excerpted from:
In My Father's House
by Gus Fowler.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Noble House. ©2003. www.americanliterarypress.com
Info/Order this book.
About the Author
Gus Fowler, a member of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosi Crucies, was
employed by the Department of the Army for 31 years. He holds a B.A.
degree in Economics from Howard University, a M.A. degree from Oklahoma
University, a Ph.D. in Economics from California Coast University, and
a Ph.D. in nutrition from Donsbach University. His publications include Getting What You Pay For (1982) and several
others on economic and health issues. He operates his own business in
Washington, D.C.
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