By What Means

 

I have only recently learned that the imagination works much better when it sets up reality in a way which allows specific outcomes to vary. If, for instance, one becomes adamant about a certain, very specific outcome, it is likely he or she will be disappointed. An easy example is that if you purchase a lottery ticket and you sprinkle oil on it and if you have it blessed by priests, you are just as likely not to win as anyone else with a similar ticket. Holding the slimy ticket in your hand whenever the winning numbers are announced, you might be tempted to admit that the imagination has no impact on winning or losing. But you would be wrong.

The mistake is made when we turn our focus to something like the little piece of paper with numbers on it. We tend to imagine this piece of paper as the means to winning the prize advertised by the lottery company. Here, we have narrowed the parameters of the imagination to the piece of paper in our hand and the prize we’ve heard of. But that is not how the imagination works.

In fact, there is so much unfoldment as a result of the imagination, there is a good chance you will miss all of the evidence and think of it as chance.

I will take a quick shortcut here and I will tell you exactly what the poison pill looks like in this case: it is the word which is tucked, almost unnoticeably, into a statement I made earlier: “Means”

This is one word we need to think of as inherently chosen by The Universe. In other words, our imagination has no effect on the means by which our desire is realized.

This fact should lead to the next conclusion: The Imagination is useful for the realization of feelings rather than objects.

Objects are simply things; which may or may not cause certain feelings. But feelings are actually the prize we seek as well as the one we can procure by imagining.

Staying with the idea of winning a lottery, you have a ticket, which is a thing and you have the winnings, which is also a thing, and finally, you have the feeling you think you would have if you won; which is not a thing.

In this case, you can imagine winning the lottery, and if this is something you truly desire, you can expect your imagination to go to work, within the external, objective world, miraculously changing events in the favor of the feelings associated with winning the lottery. However, it is easy to miss the miracle of those feelings being realized when you find out that you do not have the winning ticket and you have not won the lottery at all.

The imagination, therefore, looks at the end and works to create the story which will set up the end in the way you’ve imagined.

It is human to look at the circumstances and lose faith in your own, imaginative power. Remember that the circumstances will seldom follow any logic you might presume.

Many years ago, I was working on a truck for Mr. D, a business man in Powder Springs, Georgia. He had a son named Billy and I had heard that Mr. D was not paying Billy very well. Secretly, on Billy’s behalf, I spoke up and said, “Mr. D, Billy works really hard. Why don’t you give him a raise?”

“Billy will one day have everything I own,” Said Mr. D, “But he will know what it’s like not to have much, and he will be a better manager that way.”

That was 40 years ago and I haven’t forgotten those words. If my imagination could have had an effect on the means, I would have ruined the end. I would have given Billy the raise then; thereby reducing the bigger prize Mr. D had in mind for the way the story ends.

When we are asking for a raise from our present situation, we may be ruining the ultimate plan. It is better to imagine the feelings we want to feel and to ignore the means, the way, the circumstances we witness thereafter.

The imagination goes directly to the feelings associated with how things end up, and creates the necessary vibrations, backwards to the present, which will ultimately evolve into those feelings.

When you flip a light switch on the wall, you are not really focused on the light switch, hoping it will become some source of light; you are unconsciously imagining a room filled with light as a result of the flow of an electrical current made possible by the switch and your own behavior which flips it. This is how the imagination works. When you flip the switch of a dream, remember that you’ve only directed the current to the illumination of that dream fulfilled. Don’t focus on the switch and the current; look around and see if you see illumination instead. You will never be disappointed if you will do this.

This is not easy; being patient is the key.

Mrs. H, a dear friend of mine, was one of my favorite people.  We were once collaborators in a “dream-project” where we both desired the same outcome. Before my imagination could develop the means to the end I had in mind, I began to lose patience and I began to reimagine everything. Mrs. H warned me specifically, “Don’t give up on the brink of a miracle.” She said.

I believe she was then quoting lyrics from an old hymn.

The Bible tells us, in a few verses, that the battle is not ours. We are told to stand still if we want to see the ending we’ve imagined. The battle, we are told, is God's.