How To Develop Future Potential and Personal Genius: The Power of An Imagination

Chapter 2: The Power of an Imagination

So we know that developing future potential and personal genius begins with observation. The next level in this process is uncovering the truth about Intent and Imagination. The first thing you must do to understand the power of imagination is to stop equating imagination with non-reality. One of the ways you accomplish this is by putting to rest the statement:

"It's just your imagination!"

This statement implies that your imagination is not real and is not connected to anything tangible, when in fact, imagination is responsible for everything created in the world.

Before anything was created, it was first conceived as a thought in the thought energy field. Thought energy existed before anything else; actually thought energy does not exist. This energy field is existence itself. It has no purpose, it gives purpose. It is sovereign from all things, places, and times-everything else exists in the thought field. If we could see everything broken down to its most basic form, the universe would be an indistinguishable continuous flow of thought energy. That energy is the energy of Imagination. It produces sub-atomic particles which are responsible for the make-up of everything else in the universe. Various sequences of these particles are ordered by forces within Imagination. One of these forces we will call 'Intent'.

Intent, as we know it, is the ability to give purpose to an idea. Intent permeates everything and gives everything purpose. Birds have wings with the purpose of flying-dolphins have fins with the purpose of swimming. This intent is always moving to bring into existence an idea. The energy of intent cannot be stolen, purchased, or broken. It is in a constant flow and is an indestructible force that creates and destroys things. Is it possible to change the intent of an object? Well, yes and no. Intent is established in the thought wave so an object's purpose is created outside of time. Your mind is only able to change purpose that was intended to change; that is, intent given to time. Every person has the ability to change some things simply by intending to, however only things affected by time and space. There are aspects of an object that a natural mind can never change. These unchangeable aspects are a part of the 'Universal Order'-the harmonious union of all things. How do you change the intent of an object? Well, simply by focusing on it. Ideas expand with thought energy. The more focus given an idea, the more intent given that idea. Now focus is the same as Imagination. Imagination is the process of assembling images and other senses in your mind to create an idea. It gives Intent a target to concentrate on for change.

Right now, imagine you are petting a dog. The dog is a very playful dog and is always trying to lick your face. In your mind's eye, you may be looking at a golden retriever or a pit bull terrier. Because of the lack of information in the idea, several qualities of the dog are left up to interpretation by the one imagining. The imagination determines the outcome. Now, imagine buying a new home. It's located in a very nice community and the neighbors are pleasant. Some may imagine a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch style home, while others may envision a colonial style mansion of many more rooms and bathrooms. Imagination let's you explore the possibilities and Intent gives it purpose.

Now, Imagination manifests in three major categories: Chemical, Environmental, and Creative. Chemical Imaginations are images and other senses produced by the brain as signals to you of the body's needs. One type of Chemical Imagination is produced in a small section in the brain called the hypothalamus. It produces a certain type of amino acid called a peptide. Peptides are involved in the process of long-term memory. When we experience an event in life that the body wants to remember, peptides are released to translate your feelings chemically (i.e... feeling sad about loosing your job creates peptides that capture the emotion of sadness). The body then recalls the memory by recalling the feeling. These peptides attach to cells throughout the body. When the cell divides, it sends signals to the brain requesting the production of more peptides. The brain in response sends images and other senses to your frontal lobe, creating an imagination in hopes that you will feel a certain emotion for peptide production. We must understand something very important about chemical imagination though. Your brain will request peptide production of those found predominantly throughout your body. Meaning, what you think about or feel most of the time will be the imaginations or feelings requested by the brain. Your body will reproduce them autonomously!

This is the key to understanding addiction development. If you find yourself depressed often, it is because your body is requesting peptides that are associated with depression. You will find yourself looking for reasons to be depressed. If you have feelings of lust often, your body is craving for the peptides associated with that emotion. Peptides are designed for long-term memory, so problematic issues can resurface over the long-term. Chemical Imaginations can be a powerful foe or an equally powerful ally. Developing Future Potential is our goal, so we must gain control of this type of imagination. This is done by practicing aggressive thinking. Aggressive thinking is thinking about a specific thing in great detail and often. For example, Harry wants to propose to Sally, the love of his life, and he wants the moment to be just right. When Harry wakes up in the morning, he is focused on how he will propose. When he is driving to work, he is thinking about it. At work and also on the ride home he is consumed with this idea. He will be until he asks Sally to marry him. This aggressive thinking involves spending great amounts of time absorbed in thought to obtain results. We want results, so we must gain control of our time.

Time exists in the fourth dimension; the first three being Depth, Width, and Height. Many of us go about our lives oblivious to the affects of time, while some of us believe time is our enemy. Those types of unawareness must be destroyed. Time is a simple unit of measurement and measures things no different than a measuring cup (the ingredient measured out in most quantity will be what you will taste in the cake). To break a chemical imagination, you must first find a replacement for it that produces the feelings you would like to feel; i.e running 2 miles a day will feel better than smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Next, you will need to measure out your day. For most, that is morning, afternoon, night; for a more aggressive approach, it is every hour. An even more focused approach would be every 30 minutes; the shorter the span of time between points, the more concentrated the effort. Imagine practicing aggressive thinking every 30 minutes? The brain would eventually rewire itself to accommodate the new habit. When this happens, the body will desire the new habit. This type of imagination is a long-term process, so it should be considered a long-term goal.

Chemical Imagination is responsible for what some athletes call 'in the zone'. For example: A basketball player practices everyday and shoots from the 3-point line often. The emotions they feel from successful shots are captured by peptides and the body, when craving these peptides, will assist the shooter in aligning themselves accurately for a successful shot. The body recreates a complex synchronicity of movements that aide the shooter without their full awareness. So when you see an athlete "in the zone", don't stand in awe of his or her success, instead stand in awe of their obvious dedication to practice and imagination.

Let's observe your life as it is right now. Think about where you want to be and where you are. Answer these questions: How much time do I devote to my goals. How do I practice attaining those goals? What do I spend my time doing if it is not on attaining my goals? These questions are very important in analyzing the motives and methods of your life. Maybe, what you desire for your life is not as important as other things. Asking these questions will find that out. Your Imaginations shape your direction whether you are cognizant of it or not. Now, the second type of imagination is Environmental Imagination. This type of imagination produces images and other senses in the mind directly related to your environment. Your environment is your family, your neighborhood, your culture, your religion, and many other influences in your world. This can have a positive or negative affect on you. Certain environments are liberating to your ideas and possibilities, while others limit your imagination.

A father tells his son often "You are not going to amount to anything!". Another tells his son "You can be President!". Both fathers are projecting imagination in the mind of their sons and those imaginations will affect the children's future choices. The mind does not distinguish between good imaginations and bad ones. It simply determines that it is indeed an imagination and intent, automatically, gives it purpose. Future Potential is developed, in this case, simply by changing your environment. If you are unhappy with the direction your life is taking, you may want to take a look at your environment and how it is affecting you.

Scientist have long since discovered that teenage girls who watch sexually suggestive television are more likely to develop breast and other womanly features at a faster rate than those who do not. Teens in general are more likely to engage in sexual activity if exposed to a consistent amount of sexually suggestive material. This is due to the nature of Environmental Imagination. Imaginations produced by their environment will receive intent. Now, there is a test that measures a person's exposure to several mediums of knowledge. This test is called the Intelligence Quotient Test, better known as the I.Q Test. Test takers are given a booklet of questions from a wide range of areas from mathematics to current events. This is to test the subject's quotient of universal knowledge as in relation to their age. Its results reflect how much of the environment has been observed by the subject. Persons with high I.Q are said to have the ability to think deeply about any given subject; more than they with a lesser I.Q score. Here is the question. "What causes one person to have a higher I.Q than another?" The answer: imaginations imprinted in the mind from the environment. This is called "exposure". What the mind is exposed to, in time, it will recreate. To increase your future potential, you will need to change some aspects of what you are exposed to.

Your environment it not always easily changed though. You may live in a crime filled neighborhood or an unpleasant work environment. You may feel trapped in these situations, and see no way of changing it. Yet, there is a way to change your environment without leaving your environment. Its what I call The Principle of Inert and Exert. Think of a wave at the beach. As the tide comes in, waves crash against the shore, racing to get further inland. The wave eventually recedes back into the depths of the ocean. Well, in the mind, this also occurs. Whether you know it or not, your environmental imaginations are crashing against the shores of your mind and they are racing to go as far inland as they can. To not observe this is to have a mind that is inert-a mind that does not actively project on its environment. If you are one to reject common information given to you by your environment, instead, you project your imaginations on the environment, then you have a mind that exerts. Now an exert mind is consciously challenging elements of society; rejecting the status quo to set out on a new path. They not only reject, they in-turn, project possibilities back onto society. They crash their waves against the shores of the world. Everyone, unknowingly, does this at one time or another, but one who practices this ability will dominate their environment.

The re-directing of these energies helps you to develop an ability to re-shape your inner dialog and the energy that surrounds you. It, of course, is in your best interest to surround yourself with energies that encourage and strengthen your inner imaginations. If your goal is to be an astronaut, you need to surround yourself with imagery and other energies that encourage and strengthen that goal. As you began to surround yourself with what you want in your life, what you want will become your life.

The third type of imagination is Creative Imagination . Creative Imagination involves thinking of new ideas or new concepts involving older ideas. Creative imagining is opening yourself up to the unknown and saying "what if?" The Wright brothers, observing birds in mid-flight and asking "what if?"; or Martin Luther King Jr. observing an old idea on racial equity and asking "what if?". These individuals helped shape our world simply by asking the question "what if?". When this question is asked, the brain goes in action and begins to visualize the answer to the question. Most people, though, do not use the portion of the brain that facilitates creative visualization consistently. Many of us hate the idea of evolution because we do not like thinking that we are related to chimpanzees, but only use the portion of the brain reserved for intellect and visualization to the degree that a chimp uses its brain. That would be the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is involved in problem solving, planning, and other higher cognitive abilities. To not exercise creativity is to simply "color in the lines" and follow the path that has been etched out by the person who is being creative.

Everyday that you are alive should be spent creating something; opening up your eyes to possibilities whether visible or invisible. We are all beings of creativity and therefore have within us the necessary tools to bring into our lives everything we need to be complete. Whether that is financial, relationship wise, health wise, spiritual; we have the power to change our future by creatively imagining it to be so. The power to create is more important than the thing that is created. The thing that is created is limited, while creativity is limitless. One very important aspect of creative imagination is the fact that creative thoughts are not bound by time. Time exists in the fourth dimension and it affects everything in lower dimensions. Your creative thinking is not held to lower levels of dimension, so aspects of time, such as past, present, and future, are not obeyed by creative thought. That being said, the physical plane of your life right now, is affected by your creative imaginations, past, present and future. Meaning, your life is being shaped right now by imaginations you have thought, imaginations you are thinking, and imaginations you have not thought yet. At first, this may seem impossible, but we do this all the time when we enlist the power of prayer.

Prayer is calling out to the Universe which is not held by time and the Universe responds back with actions that help shape you right now. Your present self is more knowledgeable than your past self and your future self is more knowledgeable than your present self. Because you have the ability to think beyond time, you are able to focus creative imagination on yourself somewhere in the future. Your future self, just like a television picking up broadcasted signals, will pick up your present self's thought waves. The question that should emerge is: How will my future self know that I am calling from the past? The answer is: As you mind expands this idea and you become more aware of it, (remember, your future self is more knowledgeable than your present.) your future self also expands this idea, and to a greater extent.
Your future self, then, focuses an imagination back into the past, and you receive the imagination in the form of a revelation or a "bright idea". As I have said before, this may appear impossible, but if you think about this idea with any intensity, you will see that it has always been possible. It follows the flow of books that speak to an audience in the future, or religious prophets that speak of future events to an audience in the present. This powerful form of creative imagination will be essential in the developing of your future potential and your personal genius. Changing our ideas of reality is key in changing our future.

An exercise that will help in developing greater frequencies of imagination:

Imagine what you what like to have in your life right now or what you would like to become. Think about this idea in great detail (if you are serious, you should come up with a days worth of research). Next, write it down on paper detailing everything you thought about (once again, if you are serious, this should consist of several sheets of paper). Then create an audio recording ( i.e. on your computer or a tape recorder). From there, create an MP3 file or burn it onto a cd. Finally, listen to yourself repeatedly tell you what you want over and over again. As you listen, close your eyes and visualize yourself already having what it is you want. Grab a hold of the feeling as your imagination takes off.
You will find that your imagination will begin to dominate your life. You will begin to lay down at night and dream of this new life. It will be hidden in the synchronicities of the present one. As new areas of your life arise, acknowledge them and they will continue to appear until they are fully realized. One note though: Do not start to look for the results right away. You should free yourself of needing to see results and perform this exercise as if it were apart of your daily routine. It should become fun to listen and imagine a new life for yourself. It should not be considered a means to an end, but should be considered an action that does not require results such as dancing or watching a movie. You will not have to look for the results, the results will find you. Once you realize the potential of your Imagination, the world will become limitless to you.
See you in the next chapter!