Mind Exercises - Visualization.
A tool by Sagar Sonker
Visualization is mentally seeing the pictures of what you're thinking about. That's the simplest definition of Visualization.
There's a plethora of information, audios, and videos on Visualization, but let's look at it from a slightly different perspective here.
This article is not yet completely or comprehensively written until you see this line.
Deep Dive
Whoever talks about the Law of Attraction or Mind or Thought Creation always talks about Visualization. Visualization is indeed powerful. The effects it has on one's mind and one's creations in life are miraculous. Some people are great in Visualization, and they are able to create clear mental pictures very well, while some others are not. This talk is for everyone, whether you're good in visualization or not, because this talk is not about "how to visualize".
The core purpose behind practising any Mind Exercise is to change your beliefs. Yes! This is the first time I'm saying this, although this is mentioned in bits and pieces and hints are given about this on my website's articles as well. If you're not aware of any spiritual knowledge, one simple belief that automatically gets created and strengthened within you is, "I can be happy by practising a Mind Exercise", and that belief itself works for you. Now, the reason why your problems come back to you once you stop practising the Mind Exercises or the reason why your life doesn't seem to significantly change despite you doing a lot of spiritual "work" is that your resident evils (as I call them) i.e. the negative beliefs are still present within you unchanged. Beliefs are thousands and millions in number, and they're so subtle and natural that they work every single minute of the day for you. They are the ingredients that make you up, and if you try to find out all your negative beliefs one by one, it will not only take you a lifetime, but also stop you from enjoying your life, which is indeed the primary purpose of anyone's life.
The alternative is to create fresh new positive beliefs in place of negative beliefs. You do not need to have one positive belief for one corresponding negative belief. You just need to have one powerful positive belief against tens or hundreds of negative beliefs. That is enough, because scientifically too it has been proven that one positive thought overrides or overpowers thousands of negative thoughts. Now, which exact belief to replace could be a question. The belief or beliefs that make you feel negative are the ones to be changed. Negativity has a wide range of emotions. Anything that does not make you feel happy is negative for you. While digging and diving into your own mind to check your beliefs may be difficult (although not impossible), that would be like taking a long, rough route towards it. It is like deliberately going into a jungle alone looking for a lion that kills human beings, saying "I'm strong, I can deal with this". The easier option is to take a score or an overview of all the areas of your life and see if there are areas where you feel negative about anything. I'm sure each one of us has at least one such area in life. Many of us have more than one. Very rarely there are people who are 100% happy in their lives, and looking for improvements. Let's at least try to reach this category of people - who are 100% happy in life, and then looking for improvements.
You may probably think that I've completely diverted from Visualization, but I've not. I've gone to the roots of it, and let's understand that Visualization is not an activity as such. It is not like yoga or gymming or physical exercise that you would do for 30 minutes every day and be done with it. Although, if you sit and do it in a focused manner (and correctly with clear intentions and thought process) it would be hugely beneficial, however, Visualization comes from Enthusiasm. It cannot be forced.
When I booked my very first daring tour to Thailand with my mother, I was super-excited about it. I had never been outside India and although I did a lot of research before leaving, there were a lot of things unknown to me. I used to sleep with the excitement and wake up with it. That's when the act of visualization automatically happened. It happened very naturally, and it was not forced at all. I used to see pictures and videos of the places that I was planning to visit, and visualize myself doing the activities, buying the BTS Metro train tickets, shopping, etc. That's the Visualization I'm talking about.
The "Act" of Visualization does not manifest anything. Let's get that well-understood. Visualization is an act that naturally occurs to you. Many of us, being extremely busy in life, suppress the mind from creating visual pictures and images in the mind, and are only outwardly focused. However, if you remember, as children we are very creative, innovative by nature, and we visualize a lot. We create hypothetical, sometimes unrealistic, impractical, and impossible scenes vividly in the mind. Knowingly or unknowingly, they all manifested into our lives, and we enjoyed them. That's where cartoons have immensely helped in life. I'm talking about those simple, pure, old, fun-filled, funny, and non-violent cartoons. Not just us as children, but many innovative people, who are scientists, people who invent important things and make a difference to the world, people belong to the field of creative media, and anything that touches the hearts of many are the ones who visualize a lot. They CREATE, more than they CONSUME. You can read about why CREATION is more important than CONSUMPTION on my article "Who are you?" the link to which is available in the description of this YouTube video.
We visualize good things when we're happy. We visualize bad things when we're sad. The words "good" and "bad" (although relative from person to person), are being used in reference to an individual and his experiences in life. Visualization is active within each one of us and it's very subtle. Most of the times, we do it unknowingly and unconsciously. However, during those times when our emotions get stronger than otherwise, we happen to visualize very actively, vividly, and we can become consciously aware of it. For example, when you just miss a bad accident, which is an unpleasant scene, on coming back home, you may see pictures and scenes of that incident in your mind again and again.
But let's understand that we cannot force something to happen. Creation of our desires is not something that can be forced. It happens naturally. It happens only if and when you're positive. When you forcefully try to create something (using any method, not just Visualization), it indicates that you're actively focused on how it's absent or how it's not working or how much you're missing it. You develop a negative attitude of looking at it, and even if the Universe presents opportunities to you in that direction, you obviously don't pursue those opportunities, because you either don't see them, or you don't see any benefit or value in them, or you don't have enough positive power to take them up.
People say "Fantasize it", "Have fun with it", or "Pretend", but the basic flaw in this is that unless and until you BELIEVE in your desire, no matter how many years you spend visualizing it, things will remain as-is, rock-solid in your life. I'm sure some of the listeners must have experienced this. Visualizing (or doing any Mind Exercise) to Feel Good is a great thing. It's a big reliever, and it's more unconditional (than doing external physical actions to feel good). However, if you only feel good and don't do anything about those areas of life where you need improvements in, those areas will obviously remain as they are.
People also say that you should visualize to achieve your dreams faster, but with the active awareness that your dreams are hard to achieve, impossible, far off, and sometimes unachievable through actions, no matter how much you visualize, it does not help. You keep visualizing, but in the wrong direction.
