JORGE RODRIGUES SIMAO

In the 1980s, Shakti Gawain wrote a best-seller, Creative Visualization. She talked about the powerful impact of using your mind to imagine yourself in some activity before actually doing it in reality.

Visualization has been a self-help tool that’s been around even longer than that. Many people in all walks of life, from therapists to sports professionals, agree that seeing yourself doing it beforehand is the best way to do it well.

We can use the tool of visualization to help create matter out of spiritual energy, simply by spending quiet time during our meditation focusing on what we want, seeing ourselves having it, doing it, touching it, and feeling it. 

A visualization is an important tool. It’s a gift when we can see ourselves doing something and then having that activity manifested in reality.

Visualization only works if you use it. Make it a regular practice in your life. 

Visualize yourself living with one of your dreams. 

Visualize yourself doing something you’re nervous about doing. Take a few moments and run through the entire scenario in your head, until you can see yourself doing that thing calmly, clearly, and successfully with all obstacles cleared from your path

I always wanted to be a lawyer, professor and writer. Long ago I talked to my God of Israel about it, then asked God to bring it to pass if that dream was from Him.

Within twenty-four hours, I had my first writing assignment from a newspaper. I got paid fifty Euros a story, and I’ve been writing ever since. Sometimes, we get a vision of ourselves doing something.

We might get an inkling or even have a dream where we see ourselves doing something in the future.

We might get a feeling that we’re about to become diplomat or astronaut (more difficult). Or we might have a dream in which we see ourselves moving into a new country like the United Kingdom.

We might be driving by a neighbourhood one day and get a special feeling that it would be right for us to live there.

We might get a hunch about a career-oriented event.

Some people think these little hunches or dreams are our soul’s way of remembering what it came here to do.

We see a flash: a dream, vision, or a special feeling of what’s coming next. Maybe your dreams about what you want and what you’d like are more important than you think.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. - Basho

One of the dangers of following a hero is the temptation to emulate them too much instead of walking our own path.

A friend mine quit his job and started his own company when he was twenty-four years old. Five years later he sold out for millions of dollars.

We want to be like him so we try the same thing and go broke. What happened? Is the universe against us? No. We just got confused about the difference between learning from a hero and trying to walk his path.

The path of my friend may have led him to start a company; your path may also lead you on that course, just not at the same time in your life.

We can still learn much from our heroes and the people we admire. Just be aware that their path and time frame may be different from ours. When the time comes for you to start that business, learn a new skill, enter into a relationship, or whatever you’re hoping to do, the experience will be there.

The experience will be ready for you when you’re ready for it. Your timing may be different from everyone else’s.

I know people who got married after knowing each other for only two weeks and then stayed mostly happily married for more than thirty years.

I know people who date each other for years and still can’t decide if they’re ready to commit. My friend made the transition from living in the Midwest to living in New York in months. We each have our own stride and path. And while many of our lessons are similar, each of us is unique.

If we spend our time trying to emulate a person rather than an idea, we’ll at best be an inferior version of our teacher and at worst will never discover our own path.

Their stride will be too long or too short for us, and we won’t learn the true lesson, which is to trust our inner guide. Gautama Buddha found enlightenment while sitting under a banyan tree; Milarepa found it while living as a hermit in a Himalayan cave.

Gaining enlightenment isn’t an exercise in following a person; it’s an exercise in following your heart.

In 1922, Egypt hailed the discovery of King Tut’s tomb by archaeologist Harold Carter. On the walls of the tomb, the magicians in the king’s court had scrawled that severe punishment would befall anyone disturbing the contents of the burial site.

Over the next ten years, more than twenty people involved with the excavation died suddenly or mysteriously.

Whether you call it a curse or a hypnotic suggestion of sorts, what we’re talking about is the tremendous impact that suggestions have on us. We’re talking about the power of belief.