During a meeting of the Peace Meditation Group on 8 January 1976, Sri Chinmoy offered these illumining insights into using imagination to help raise our consciousness or improve our meditation, as excerpted from My Meditation-Service at the United Nations for 25 Years.
“Inside us are many worlds; imagination is one of them. We have a free access to the world that is around us and before us, but we do not have a free access to the worlds inside us. We have to bring the imagination-world to the fore so that it can enter into the reality-world we are now living in. We have to establish a friendship between the world of imagination and the world of so-called reality. It is like this. Somebody is inside the house and somebody is outside the house. We are friendly with the person who is outside the house because most of the time we stay outside. But when we come inside, we see that somebody else is there. We can also make friends with that person and ask him to come out with us and make friends with the person who is outside.
“This we can do only if we take imagination as a reality in its own right, as a reality in a higher world or inner world that is on another plane of consciousness. We have to see imagination as an inner reality that is waiting for revelation and manifestation here in this outer world. Then we can try to bring it into this world. If we take imagination as something unproductive and unreal, then it can never be of use to us. If we think imagination is the South Pole and reality is the North Pole, if we think imagination is only mental hallucination, then we will never take it seriously and we will never be able to use it to raise our consciousness or improve our meditation.
“Imagination can play a most significant role in the spiritual life. Suppose we are not having good meditations, but six months ago we had a very powerful, very high meditation. What we can do is try to imagine that powerful meditation. After fifteen minutes or half an hour, our imagination will become reality and we will once again have a good meditation.”
Sri Chinmoy, My Meditation-Service at the United Nations for 25 Years, Agni Press, 1995
The following comments about imagination as it relates to concentration, meditation and contemplation are excerpted from a talk given by Sri Chinmoy at Cornell University on 26 November 1975.
“Imagination helps the seeker in us considerably. Before we concentrate, in silence if we can imagine the blazing sun, the fiery sun, then it helps us considerably in our concentration. Like a magnet, the seeker in us pulls the power of the sun, the boundless power of the sun.
“Then, before we meditate, if we can imagine the vast sky, then the vastness of the sky enters into us and helps us considerably. It helps us establish tranquillity and peace in our mind, in our heart, in our earthly physical frame.
“And before we contemplate, we should in silence imagine the moon, the beauty of the moon, which is the emblem, here on the earth, of the Absolute Supreme. The beauty of the moon represents the Consciousness of the Divine Mother. The Mother aspect of the Supreme Beloved is embodied by the moon. So if we imagine the moon, then the beauty, delight, sweetness, nearness and closeness of the Absolute Supreme we feel operating in and through us. Or if we can imagine the most beautiful child on earth, and if, on the strength of our imagination, we can feel this most beautiful child in the inmost recesses of our heart, then it helps us considerably.”
Sri Chinmoy, Palmistry, Reincarnation and the Dream State, Agni Press, 1977
