"There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.
"At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.
"And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.
"This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.
- from "In Search of the Miraculous"
According to Mr. G, "Imagination” is amongst the most pervasively deleterious actions people undertake. This is not due to the immediate impact, but rather the massive amount of time and energy which is wasted little by little, and also the subtle reinforcements of these same wasteful motivations. The process reinforces itself and perpetuates itself through its own momentum. Most people may think of imagination as the beneficial aspect of creativity, but in regards to G's system it had another definition which was highly specific. These days, such a phenomena is more commonly known amongst society under another name.
"Daydreaming" is one of the ways for the mind to reinforce its patterns of response, by imagining scenarios and acting them out internally as if it was involved. This aspect of mind activity is like an engine that is always running, because it has an “idle” as well as a number of active "gears". The idling keeps all the pistons moving along, it keeps the process in order without initiating an outward movement anywhere. In regards to daydreaming, the manifestations are primarily internal. Of course, it is also the springboard for external manifestations as well: "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks".
The images or symbols or stories of these daydreams are really little more than a surface film covering the actual activity, or the real energy of this process. This energy is most often emotional but can also be some particular sensory/sensation type experience. Unfortunately these motivational forces are usually overlooked in favor of the content regarding the specific images or ideas or stories or words. In other words, the person believes that the conceptual thoughts are the entire purpose of thinking, so they continue to reason the situation out, to mentally go over it and so forth. In general this sort of thinking activity is regarded by people as "only natural" and therefore the process continues unabated. However the process does exact a toll from a person, as all movements of mind need some sort of energy to work with. It is also the same activity which keeps wasteful and unpleasant states fixated within the mind.
The actual purpose for this kind of "thinking" has very little to do with the conceptual thoughts involved, rather it is the mind seeking to reinforce its response patterns or attempting to solidify itself by creating obsessively defined and rigid boundaries. These heavily guarded lines of demarcation are easily achieved by the mind which becomes emotionally invested in its own thought process, repeatedly, over and over and over and over, everyday for years and years. What people like to call “thinking” is usually nothing more than this sort of “daydreaming” activity. It is an unconscious motivation driving an unconscious process. It is a way of trying to freeze the energetic processes of mind, and is the activity of mind which would like to somehow possess or own itself. Similar to a dog chasing its tail, the mind becomes desirous of its own manifestations and seeks to repeat them in an effort to maintain the stability of such familiar comfort.
So a key point to remember is that emotions and feelings (and sometimes sensations) are both the byproduct produced and the end result sought by daydreaming. They are the meat of the process, the main force at work. There is actually very little significance to the ideas involved; perhaps the thinking process may indicate “I” will be going with “you” to a certain “place” where “things happen”, or whatever else, etc. etc. However, all of these images are irrelevant to the end result sought by the mind. They are tools of the process, and not actually “real”. They are not symbols for objects which are accurately defined. They are rather like name-tags slapped onto various edges of a turbulent storm-cloud. One may look at these formations for various sources of daydreams as different sorts of fields for an internal crop, where the mind can go and harvest a particular fruit. The conceptual thoughts are the transportation to that field and the shearing tools which allow the mind to eventually extract the fruit.
With the knowledge contained in this key point, we can therefore disregard the symbolic and linear time based aspect of “daydreams” (or the story-line, the plot, the description), and encounter this process in another way: as simply a distinct set of feelings, emotions, sensations, and so forth - an energetic experience. They may be pleasant or unpleasant, but at the most basic level such perceptual objects are the primary energy or fuel of the process, which is maintained by constant reinforcement or self-creation. When these fruits are harvested, the seeds within them become the source of the next crop. As the mind continually spreads the wealth of this harvest, the harvest itself becomes more viable and sustainable. Unfortunately this analogy does not have the same productive connotations as actual farming, at least in regards to the Work.
In a sense, we must digest this energy or fuel. We must eat the fruits instead of simply collecting them and spreading their seed. What we do not realize in our unconsciousness is that the very daydreaming about various objects and stories is what blocks us from experiencing the peace and joy and freedom and so forth we imagine we would get from those objects or stories, or alternately, the peace and joy and freedom and so forth we fear they will take from us. This daydreaming seeks to correct a distortion of mind, without realizing it was the source of it in the first place. It works both in a positive and negative sense, because all of these internal constructs are self-perpetuating. It does not matter if it is pleasant or unpleasant experience; whatever is not fully digested or accepted is regarded as “other” and will remain as seed and have potential to sprout endlessly and find fruition from whatever internal or external process is available.
If you are able to encounter your daydreaming and “thinking” without getting caught up in the conceptual content itself, but rather let the energy of the process wash over you without acting on it, you will find it occurs less and less frequently. Eventually, the constant repetition of such daydreaming will be replaced by an expansive and vibrant space of mind. This is a vibrancy of mind which is fully attuned to the current moment of experience, and is therefore incredibly enriched by it. It is not a mind which is daydreaming of what might be, but rather a mind which concentrates on that which is. At this point, all of the efforts which had been previously spent in the process of maintaining these daydreams will be freely available for other activities.
The desire to seek fulfillment outside oneself is the very cause of non-fulfillment. There is a great amount of time and energy spent in "imagination", which will naturally coalesce into self-perpetuating cycles of non-fulfillment. By letting this time and energy dissolve into a formless and undifferentiated experience, we can recover it. When it has become manifest in specific ideas and forms and images, in a sense we have lost it because we regard it as apart from us, as “other”. When it is allowed to remain as potential and raw energy, we will find we have recovered ourselves and our fulfillment.
