IMAGINATION: THE WORKSHOP OF THE MIND
Image: John Matthias Kuehne, 1950
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will explore Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, under a modern Benshen-esque lens. Though one might believe that wealth only equals money, “rich” expands beyond that: it means being able to create prosperity in your life, which can take shape in many different forms. Money is just one medium. Prosperity goes so far beyond financial gains and Hill, with his 13 Principles of Success and teachings on the Laws of the Universe, pioneered a unique roadmap to excellence and how to unlock prosperity—one that focuses on how to program our mental faculties rather than lean on external circumstances.
LAW FIVE: IMAGINATION
- THE WORKSHOP OF THE MIND -
“The imagination is literally the workshop wherein are
fashioned all plans created by man.
The impulse, the desire, is given shape, form, and action
through the aid of the imaginative faculty of the mind.”
—Napoleon Hill
Have you ever stopped to wonder where do our ideas come from? And even more importantly, have you ever examined that part of the mind that shuts down moments of genius, of inspiration, of pure vision? Our imagination is one of the most powerful faculties of the mind for it's the ability within us to generate and organize a vision to reality. Every single thing on Planet Earth was once an idea, a thought, a vision. It took one person's courage to listen to the whispers of their own imagination and follow the blueprint it lays before us to bring vision to reality. It's not some magical super power or genius that only a few people on Earth get to experience - the difference between most people and the ones that chase their dreams is that the dreamers are the ones that push aside the part of the mind that says, “That's not possible…" In reality, the dreamers are the ones that know anything is possible and at Benshen.co, we're in the business of making the impossible possible.
In Napoleon Hill's Book, Think and Grow Rich, the Fifth Principle of Success is an especially fun one, as it coaxes out our child-like sense of play and wonder. Because the truth is, the idea of “growing up” is an archaic one. The freedom we had prior to the world putting us into boxes meant that we could dream big and believe that absolutely anything was possible. Imagination is a vessel to the world unknown and as we move through time and space (or what others may want to call “growing up”), our imagination remains one of the most powerful tools we can use to think outside of the current box we live in and create a life of our dreams. As Florence Scovel Shinn says in her book, The Game of Life and How to Play It:
"There is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill, something you are to do, which no one else can do...There is a perfect picture of this in the superconscious mind. It usually flashes across the conscious as an unattainable ideal—‘something too good to be true.’ In reality it is [person’s] true destiny (or destination) flashed to [them] from the Infinite Intelligence which is within [themselves]. Many people, however, are in ignorance of their true destinies and are striving for things and situations which do not belong to them, and would only bring failure and dissatisfaction if attained.”
We each have the opportunity to use our imagination to fathom the unfathomable, to create what once didn’t exist, and to shape our reality however we want. But for most of us, imagination is not a faculty of the mind we are used to flexing. But if we free up our inhibitions a bit, we have access to these higher faculties and can tap back in at any moment.
According to Napoleon Hill, there are two flavors of imagination: “synthetic” and “creative”.
SYNTHETIC IMAGINATION works like rearranging the alphabet to create different combinations, but not necessarily creating something NEW; “it merely works with the material of education, experience, and observation with which it is fed.”
CREATIVE IMAGINATION is where the genius lives, where possibility for ANYTHING lives, the something-from-nothingness, and it works directly in proportion to its use, like any muscle or organ.
Both are important but as we traverse into the realms of dreaming bigger dreams and honing in our powers of manifestation, this is the perfect opportunity to call upon our creative imagination so that we can lean into our lush inner world and “give life and action to ideas that will sweep aside all opposition.”
In this newsletter, we will discuss how to exercise our imagination, as it is arguably the most powerful tool in our box, that gives life and energy to what we want most. Our imagination is the portal into infinite possibility. The doorways to dreams are now open...
Image: Illustrated descriptive price-list of magical apparatus and illusions, 1884
In a stirring chat with Thomas Jones, creator of the Paradox Process and one of the speakers at the BENSHEN IMMERSION, he emphasized how we are always co-creating our reality...so why not take out the middle-person, the need for validation or “gut-checking” with external forces on whether we deserve something, and dream as big and audaciously as we possibly can? When we listen to our desires and our imagination, we tap right into excitement and anticipation. However, the moment we reach to someone else and ask their opinion, we open the door for all of their own judgements to overlay our own inspiration, opinions that may have absolutely nothing to do with us and our own vision. Suddenly, we're left feeling hopeless and uninspired when a moment prior our inner fire was burning.
So instead of running around and asking everyone else their opinion once we begin to play with and explore this faculty of the mind, why not focus on creating something we want to see, and not be afraid to want it? What if you spent one month in the comfort of your own cozy visions, only sharing with those that you KNOW will support you and your dreams (maybe keeping it to 1-3 people) and see what happens when you drop the need for external validation. Whenever we ask for advice, we're essentially looking for someone to tell us what we already know. Of course, there are things we genuinely don't know and have to learn - this is education, something entirely different. But advice, that is when we already know the answer deep down, our wants and needs and cravings, but we are too afraid to step into our power. So instead, we run around asking 500 people what they think and by the end of the day, we're totally lost, utterly drained, and that spark of an idea suddenly flies out the window. What if, instead, you kept your dreams to yourself and those who support you as an experiment as you are bringing them to life. If you don't let the negativity in, it's miraculous to see what can unfold….
THE PRACTICE: For one week, try going about life without asking for advice. Please note, we're not talking about your therapists or your healers/mentors. We're talking about that thing we do as humans when we go to all of our friends, our friends friends, our family members, the random person we meet at the deli, and ask them what they think about XYZ. Instead, ask yourself first, “What answer am I really looking for? Is that one that excites me? Is it telling me to move forward with this idea? Is it telling me to be patient? What am I looking for if I go to ask for advice…” Get your notebook and write down whatever comes to you - see how much you can validate yourself and use that extra energy that would be wasted otherwise to fuel your dreams. This is the art of building personal trust and energy, the two main ingredients needed to bring our dreams down to Earth.
Image: Oscar Dominguez, Untitled, 1936
There are two times of the day when our minds are most ripe for exploration: early in the mornings and in the evening before we drift off into dreamland. There is so much information to be revealed - from the thoughts we think about ourselves, the stories we create, and our neglect of the most powerful faculty of our mind: our imagination. Often times, our imagination gets cut off by the roaring echoes of doubts and fears, which can be louder during the day as we're navigating through the world. However, when we learn to become curious about what's under the hood of our own mind, we can start to cultivate a different relationship to it, one where we can draw from the wells of inspiration and vision and trusting that these aren't just “childlike fantasies” as the world wants us to believe but actual sparks of genius that are showing us how to make a dream a reality. All of the most successful people on the planet are the ones who once had a spark of a vision and chose to follow their imagination to the end of the road, constantly using it as a source of inspiration rather than allowing the outside world to control their dreams.
One way in which we can practice tuning into the power of our imagination, for it's a muscle that needs to be flexed, is to spend time going within and watching the movies it plays for us. This week, we're drawing on inspiration from The Surrealists of the 20th century who craved to tap into “original invention in the human mind” by exploring the unconscious. They believed in the idea of automatic writing—something that “bypassed logic, aesthetic conventions, and social inhibitions to allow a direct transcription of unconscious thoughts and desires.”
Almost like “spirit writings”, in the way that Mediums connect to other portals, we can follow suit after these experimental artists, with simply a pen and paper. In the morning, preferably after meditation when our mind is at its most fresh or in the evening right before drifting off to dream worlds, explore writing aimlessly in a stream-of-consciousness format for 10 minutes about anything…see what unfolds when you give yourself space to dream without inhibition - no judgement or expectations.
It is through this practice that we might start to unfurl the way our “rational mind” overpowers our imagination. Over time, we might find patterns of thinking—that are positive or negative in nature—and consciously choose to follow their paths in hopes of imagining the life we dare to lead.
OCTOBER BENSHEN COURSE BOOK CLUB GEM:
“If you cannot believe that something is possible, then you are not going to have it. But if you can have the smallest thought that it might be possible, you are already on your way to creating it. You cannot create something if you do not believe you can have it. Live out your dreams in your mind; picture or feel yourself getting what you want. Hear the words you will say to others and they will say to you when your dreams come true. Make your imaginings so real that they feel possible to create rather than like wishful and distant fantasies.”
— Creating Money, Sanaya Roman + Duane Packer