The Power of Imagination and Visualisation Can Aid in Coming into Direct Contact with One’s Psychic Being

The power of visualisation has been recognised as an aid in healing from illness, in excelling in sports, and in helping an individual achieve results in the external world. The spiritual seeker also can put this power to work to achieve results in the inner world. Practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism are trained on how to utilize visualisation in their spiritual practice and considerable focus is placed upon the techniques involved. Devotees from other traditions also frequently use visualisation, whether consciously or unconsciously, to place themselves in a state of receptivity to the spiritual forces.

Highly mentalised individuals frequently mistake acceptance of an idea as the true realisation. This however is misleading. They may experience a change of thought, but their vital being and their bodies remain untransformed, unchanged. The progress that occurs on the mental plane needs to be transmitted and accepted by the vital and physical levels of the being in order to become an integral progress that also has the power to express itself in the external world.

The power of visualisation is one method for aiding the seeker in moving the spiritual pressure and the mental idea into the vital and physical realms and thereby effectuating the realisation in the entire being. One of the main leverage points is the direct and solid contact with one’s psychic being, the spiritual center of the being hidden deep within the being behind the secret heart. This brings forth the power of realisation. The Mother provides insight into how to use the power of visualisation to effectuate this direct psychic contact.

The Mother notes: “… when one goes on the discovery of one’s inner being, of all the different parts of one’s being, one very often has the feeling that one is entering deep into a hall or room, and according to the colour, the atmosphere, the things it contains, one has a very clear perception of the part of the being one is visiting. And then, one can go from one room to another, open doors and go into deeper and deeper rooms each of which has its own character. And often, these inner visits can be made during the night. Then it takes a still more concrete form, like a dream, and one feels that he is entering a house, and that this house is very familiar to him. And according to the time, the periods, it is internally different, and sometimes it may be in a state of very great disorder, very great confusion, where everything is mixed up; sometimes there are even broken things; it is quite a chaos. At other times these things are organised, put in their place; it is as though one had arranged the household, one cleans up, puts it in order, and it is always the same house. This house is the image, a kind of objective image, of your inner being. And in accordance with what you see there or do there, you have a symbolic representation of your psychological work. It is very useful for concretising. It depends on people.”

“Some people are just intellectuals; for them everything is expressed by ideas and not by images. But if they were to go down into a more material domain, well, they risk not touching things in their concrete reality and remaining only in the domain of ideas, remaining in the mind and remaining there indefinitely. Then one thinks one is making progress, and mentally one has done so, though it is something altogether indefinite.”

“The mind’s progress may take thousands of years, for it is a very vast and very indefinite field, which is constantly renewed. But if one wants to progress in the vital and physical, well, this imaged representation becomes very useful for fixing the action, making it more concrete. Naturally it doesn’t happen completely at will; it depends on each one’s nature. But those who have the power of concentrating with images, well, they have one more facility.”

“To sit in meditation before a closed door, as though it were a heavy door of bronze — and one sits in front of it with the will that it may open — and to pass to the other side; and so the whole concentration, the whole aspiration is gathered into a beam and pushes, pushes, pushes against this door, and pushes more and more with an increasing energy until all of a sudden it bursts open, and one enters. It makes a very powerful impression. And so one is as though plunged into the light and then one has the full enjoyment of a sudden and radical change of consciousness, with an illumination that captures one entirely, and the feeling that one is becoming another person. And this is a very concrete and powerful way of entering into contact with one’s psychic being.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter III Imagination, pp. 35-37