IMAGINATION FULFILLS ITS SELF
I say imagination creates reality, and if this premise is true then imagination fulfills itself in what your life becomes. Although I have changed the words, what I am saying is not new. Scripture says it in this manner: “Whatsoever you desire, believe you have received it and you will.” This statement goes back two thousand years, yet even before that Jeremiah tells of the same principle in his story of the potter and his clay. But until imagination becomes a part of your normal, natural currency of thought, you will not act consciously. Like breathing, this awareness must become so much a part of you that you will not turn to the left or the right to praise or blame anyone. When you know this presence it will not matter if you started life behind the eight-ball, or in a palace; as a poor, or a rich child; you will realize that life is always externalizing what you are imagining. Lacking the knowledge of this principle, you can reproduce your environment – be it pleasant or unpleasant – forever and ever, as you feed your imagination on what your senses dictate.
But knowing this principle, you can ignore the present, and untethered by the so-called facts of life, you can imagine the present as you desire it to be and feed upon your desire, rather than its omission. Now, imagination cannot be observed as we see objects in space, for imagination is their reality. Faucett gives the name, “God” to the cause of the universe, saying: “God, the creator, is like pure imagining in ourselves. He works in the depths of our soul underlying all of our faculties, including perception, and streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy.” Listen to your thoughts and you will hear God’s words! A thought that is not felt produces nothing. But a thought producing motor elements reproduces itself! Catch God in a moment of a motor element such as anger, fear, or frustration, being congratulated or congratulating, and you will know what is going to happen in your world. Unless, of course you arrest your thoughts and revise them. Most of us, however, are not aware of what we are doing, so we do not observe the creator. But we can catch him as he streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy. If, while riding the bus, driving the car, sitting at home, or standing at a bar, you hear a remark and react by moving on the inside, that remark will fulfill itself in what your life becomes.
This principle sets you free, if you are willing to assume its responsibility. But whether you assume it or not, you will fulfill your every motor element thought anyway. So in the end you will not sympathize or condemn, but simply tell those who may be going through an unpleasant experience of this principle, and – if they accept it – let the principle work in their lives. Now, the average person in America is either Christian or Jew. Ask any one of them if they believe that imagining creates reality, and the chances are they will give you a negative response. But although they do not know it, if they believe in God they believe in imagination. They may read scripture and accept the words on the surface, but their meaning has not become a part of their thinking. Last night, for instance, I heard Billy Graham for the first time. Here were thousands of people in the audience listening to a thousand-member choir sing the song, “Oh, how I love Jesus.” Now, I don’t want to be critical, but when I heard Billy Graham speak I realized that he had not the slightest concept of Jesus, far less his second coming. He said: “If Jesus should come now, just imagine, there would be no more cancer, no more heart failures, and no more death.” Billy Graham believes heaven is made up of flesh and blood bodies in excrementitious states. And they would have to have bathrooms there, if there were no more death. If you were still in a body, that is excrementitious. You would have to take in food which is given you, and what you could not assimilate you would have to expel. And, unless you lost all sense of shame and reverted to the animal world, you would have to have a bathroom. I listened to this man and asked myself: is this the man who was entertained at the White House and received by the Pope at the Vatican? (On the other hand, the Pope is equally silly concerning the mystery of Christ.) Then at the end of the program, there was an appeal for money.
He will give you two books which you hadn’t asked for. One interprets the Bible and the other interprets the first one. All you need do is send in your donation to this simple address: Billy Graham, Minneapolis, Minn. “But,” said he: “this program is costing us $500,000, and we don’t have that sort of money. So if you are alone please send in a contribution. But if you are not alone then take up a collection among all who are with you and send it in.” Now, this goes on night after night for one solid week! He is a grand and wonderful being, but he has no concept of the mystery of Christ. Now, I want to show you what I mean when I say you can be exactly what you want to be. Let me begin by telling you that for the last couple of months I have felt like the devil, yet I knew I was responsible for the hell I found myself in. The doctor gave me every possible test, and when I saw him yesterday he told me I was a dilemma. Do you know what a dilemma is? It’s an argument presenting two or more alternatives equally conclusive against an opponent. In other words, if you start on the assumption that whatever you choose your conclusion will be wrong, you have a dilemma. You can use anything as a dilemma. That’s me. My blood indicated one thing in a certain test and the opposite in another. The tests only confirmed what I already knew: that the cause of my discomfort lay in the depth of my soul and not in any secondary cause – such as a thyroid, heart, liver, kidney, or anything outside of myself.
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