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.

Unconscious 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.

Emptying Your Mind of Unwanted Thoughts

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.

Preparing to Approach the Cosmic

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.

Concentration & Relaxation

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.

Meditation: Silent, Passive, Open, Receptive

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 meditation, 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 in Successful Visualization

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 state 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.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher,
Noble House. ©2003.

Article Source

In My Father's House
by Gus Fowler.

Gus Fowler effectively blends Christianity and the doctrines of the Rosicrucians to create a guidebook that helps readers with the actualization of their innermost dreams. He offers the perfect prescription for individuals who wish to reconnect with God as they search for personal and spiritual fulfillment. Fowler uses the biblical story of the "prodigal son" to illustrate modern man's dilemma and to nudge readers towards greater understanding. The "prodigal son's" main theme is critical to the author's concept of "rediscovering one's place in the Father's House." He provides step-by-step instructions that enable readers to put "thought into action" while focusing on the use of positive techniques such as relaxation, meditation, and creative visualization.

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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.