Visualization
When we have organized, analyzed, and used logic to sort out the analysis, we then bring into play that mighty power, visualization. Visualization is the ability to see the future. Visualization is the crystal ball gazer, in a sense. Visualization is the ability to project the present into its future unfoldment. That is not done through wishful thinking. It is not through dreams and idle desires. It is through the logic of taking the basic facts from the analysis and projecting them through the law of growth, saying that this action ultimately will lead to this action, which in turn will bring about this result, and that is either good or bad, pro or con.
Visualization is a power of mind that must be developed. It is not a gift that comes for any one number better than the other in the sense of being a God-given gift. The nine has visionary powers and the eight has broad vision too. Still, any person and any number from 1 to 9 can develop visualization. It is just an ability of the mind to sort it out, analyze it logically, project it, and not become emotionally involved. So much enters into a situation. We are inclined always to hope for the best when it comes to bringing rewards of success. We play down the chances of failure--not that we want to be pessimists--but we must be realists.
Certainly we have to be optimistic, yes, but at the same time optimism at the expense of reality is not logical. Optimism based upon reality and the knowledge of the basic laws of growth co-ordinated with the cycles of time is good, true, and positive. But optimism as being just an emotion, an inspiration, is a waste of both time and valuable energy. Visualization is taking the present facts and mentally seeing them grow, bringing the length of time down to a very, very short interval, or, in another way, expanding our minds from now into the future, so that we can see broadly, definitely, and exactly what is going to transpire.
Each one of us should work steadily to develop the ability to visualize. It is not some mystical, star-gazing experience in which we close our eyes and say, "Let me see, yes, it is coming into focus. Now I see it. There it is." It is nothing of the sort. However, it can be that fast. When someone says something, immediately we can analyze it, sort it out for its intent, maybe for the emotion or the logic or illogicality behind it. Immediately we can see what the effect will be as it registers upon others. We can see if that thought is followed through in definite action, what will transpire just from the point of view of plain common sense and logic. If someone says, "I'm going downtown," we can visualize him getting into his car and driving over one of the bridges ending up downtown. We see him at his ultimate objective. It can be just that fast.
Someone says, "I'm going to go out on a big splurge," or "I'm going to have a really big feast today. We have been on a nine-day application period, and I'm sick and tired of all these green vegetables. I want something I can sink my teeth into, like apple pie and ice cream and a few other things." Immediately we can see the attitude of that person to diet. We can see the relationship of his thoughts to the respect of the physical body as compared to the satisfaction of the desires. We can just project that month after month, year after year, and can see from that one thought, that one attitude, that in a short time that person is either going to be very, very much overweight or sick, or a combination of both. It is just an automatic ultimate end to that disrespect toward the principle of dietary control.
The ability to take something that may be subtle and project it is a developed sense of mental growth. It is not a fight. It is just a development of mind, something that must be kept down to the basic principles of logic and not become involved in feelings, hoping, guessing, and intuition or anything of that nature, but just plain common sense. That is what is going to separate the philosopher from the spiritualist.
Visualization is a tremendous power that every one of us can develop, slowly, day by day. Just as we get up in the morning to do our breathing before we go off to do our daily routine, we can start a thought in motion and visualize it in its completion, and we can establish the seed in mind for future unfoldment and growth. We can further that seed every morning as we breathe; we can further it throughout the day as we pause and take a deep, concentrated, conscious breath. Each time we direct our minds to that end, we can add power to it and bring about a definite, constructive result.
Visualization by itself remains only a mental power. Visualization is still (not quite entirely) in the abstract plane, it is in the plane of mind without being in the physical finite plane of material success. Of course, we may visualize and achieve some success in a mental sense--which is excellent--but we cannot stop at that point, just thinking that by visualizing the ultimate objective that it is automatically going to guarantee the realization of our objectives. Instead there is much more finite application required.
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