UNLOCKING THE PRISON OF SELF

Imagination is the key that unlocks the prison of self. Each of us is contained within the poor four walls of his ego, and it is this con-tainment, this restriction that visits our ills upon us, that locks us away from the source of our power. The mental essence of the Se-cret Self is imagination. In one quick instant imagination can span all boundaries, all space, all time. Man, the physical animal, is only an infinitesimal creature struggling in the gigantic abyss of space and time, but man, the mental being, has the same stature as the

universe itself, for his mind can perceive all and understand all, the very structure of matter and life. Imagination propels him into such understanding. Imagination is his link with the Secret Self.

John Masefield wrote, “Man consists of body, mind and tion. His body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagina-tion has made him remarkable. In some centuries, his imaginaimagina-tion has made life on this planet an intense practice of all the lovelier energies.”

It has been established that whatever is maintained as an image in the mind will make its way into the outer world and manifest as a physical fact. This is not because we have changed the outer world but because we are able to see there only those things that our con-sciousness is conditioned to perceive. By changing our conscious-ness we alter our perception. Consciousconscious-ness is generally altered by stimuli from the outer world. One born into money tends to de-velop a prosperity consciousness and thus to live all his life in a condition of plenty. Similarly, one born into a condition of poverty tends to develop a scarcity consciousness and thus to live all his life in a condition of scarcity. Insofar as this is true of each of us, we are slaves to our environment. Yet the liberating tool lies with-in—imagination. According to how we use this consciousness-conditioning power of our minds we are able to remake our lives.

Imagination can condition your consciousness any way you choose. Properly used, it can make you master of all events, all cir-cumstances. No longer need you exist as an equation of reaction to the things and events that surround you, but instead you may cast up within your mental being those images that most suit your inner goals and intents. Seeing these instead of opposition and discou-ragement, nothing under the sun can stop you from achieving them.

VISUALIZATION

What a lovely thing is the power of the mind to visualize! Pa-geants, scenes, whole arenas of action may be cast up within the imagination, in full color and sound, at a moment’s notice. What we choose to see within our minds we see, and this is the principal fact of our existence. We are always no more or less than the things that take root in our consciousness, and when we determine to keep out all that detracts and restricts and limits, then we have taken our first step in making our lives a self-determined affair ra-ther than a reaction. The God-like part of man is mental, spiritual.

What is so astounding about his existence is not his hands or eyes or heart or liver or even brain, but the fact that he thinks, visualiz-es, conceivvisualiz-es, originates. By an amazing gift of some genie he is able to choose what he will think and thereby determine his fate.

All creativity stems from the relationship of the surface self with the Secret Self, and from the dynamic effect of imagination upon the Secret Self. An author puts himself in tune with his muse by first subordinating his surface self to some power within which he knows to be great and vastly effective. He then focuses his imagi-nation on his story and his characters, and by a process that seems entirely independent of him they begin to move and reveal them-selves, and the story unfolds. He is not “making it up.” It is as real to him, more real in fact, than the chairs and desks in his room.

What is happening in his mind is happening within him, and he ac-knowledges it immediately as being part of him, as changing him, as making him different than he was before the story came and the characters performed. Upon the moving screen of his mind an in-tensely significant and highly symbolic drama is played, for what he visualizes there is taken unto him and becomes a part of him, and his consciousness is altered by it. It is not the author who creates the book, but the book that creates the author, just as we all are creations of the mental images and ideas and thoughts that have found a home in our minds.