One of the traditional forms of meditation is visualization, which involves the imaginative powers of the mind. Imagination is that mental faculty that is able to form concepts or images in the absence of sensory data. As the yogins of India and the magi of Europe have known for a long time, and as Carl Gustav Jung has rediscovered for Western psychology, imagination is the psyche’s most powerful capacity. Unlike dreams or reveries, the yogic imaginative visualizations are consciously structured, are controlled processes, and have a specific purpose: to liberate, in psychoanalytic language, the practitioner from the clutches of the unconscious.

Broadly put, through our imagination we are able to create images, which need not necessarily be visual. These images can involve sound, touch, smell, or movement. Most people find it easiest to generate visual and auditory images, and the former can have an especially potent influence on the physical body. In most cases, however, the imagery we create tends to lack vividness and vitality. Therefore yogic practitioners, like initiates of the magical arts, spend A great deal of time strengthening their faculty of imagination. This enables them to create vivid three-dimensional images of their mediation object and hold them stably for a prolonged period of time, so that these images can have a profound and long lasting effect on the psyche and even the body.

Visualization is particularly cultivated in Tantrism, especially the Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism of Tibet. Here visualization of specific leities is thought to complement and surpass the practice of the virtue perfections (paramita) such as generosity, patience, and compassion, as taught in the Sutras of Mahayana Buddhism. This so-called Deity Yoga (deva-yoga) is explained in the Buddhist Tantras as combining both wisdom (prajna} and method (upaya).

Deity Yoga is the essential practice of what is known as the High- est Yoga Tantra (anuttara-yoga-tantra), which proceeds in two phases. The first phase is the stage of generation (utpatti-krama), consisting in the creation of vivid visualizations first of a deity apart from oneself and then of oneself as identical with that deity. The second phase is the stage of completion {nishpanna-krama) in which the transformation achieved on the imaginative or mental level crystallizes to the point of concreteness. First, one actually becomes the visualized deity and in due course realizes the deity’s and one’s own ultimate nature, which is the Buddha nature.

Meditation practices will help aid you in living a life of “love” each and every day. Below are a few of the innumerable benefits of learning how to love:

Energy and expansiveness: If you’ve ever been in love, you know how vital and alive you can feel when your heart is wide open. Instead of the usual sense of limitation you ordinarily experience, you feel like you have no boundaries, as though you can’t really tell where you leave off and the outside world (or your beloved) begins.

Peace and well-being: When your heart is filled with love, you feel happy and peaceful for no external reason. In fact, love, happiness, joy, peace, and well-being are just different names and versions of the same basic energy - the loving, life-giving energy of the heart.

Good health: Yes, love is life-giving and life-enhancing. For one thing, it brings people together to create babies, and in general love contributes to optimal health by providing an immeasurable vital spark that not only nourishes the internal organs but also provides the body (and the person) with a reason to live. 

When was the last time you let your imagination run away with you?

Word Visualizations: 

Step 1:   Take any single target word about who you are, your ability, or what you want to accomplish. Write it on a 3 x 5 card.

Step 2:   Get yourself into a relaxed state, preferably just before you go to bed. Hold the card about 12" to 24" from your eyes. Focus your eyes on the word and concentrate your attention. Hold this thought for up to 20 or 30 minutes.

Step 3:   Do this exercise nightly for at least two weeks. As you continue, you are burning the image of your goal word into your mind. It will be with you in your thoughts as you proceed in your everyday life.

Image Visualization: 

Step 1:               Create or find an image of an object, person, or thing that embodies your goal for who you are, what your abilities are, or what you want to accomplish:

·                                 a comfortable house            a rainbow

·                                 a diploma                             a sunset

·                                 a cruise ship                         a calm ocean

·                                 a happy, healthy child            a sunny day

·                                 a slim body                            a snow topped mountain

Step 2:   Get yourself into a relaxed state and either look at the picture or imagine you reaching your goal. Do this for 20 minutes each night for one month.

Step 3:   Get copies of your picture or a simulation of your goal, and tape them in places where you will see them as you go through your normal day.

Step 4:            Continue to keep your images in place until you have accomplished the ``goal'' feelings of success and/or achieved the ``object'' success. The important thing is to believe that it is possible to achieve. This motivation is the most important step on your journey to success.

Scenario Visualizations: 

Step 1:   Once you have a goal in mind for yourself, daydream a full color movie in your mind of what your life would be like if you achieved the goal. 

Step 2:   Get a tape recorder and talk out the whole movie on tape. Be fully descriptive, colorful, positive, and uplifting. Use your imagination to the fullest and describe how positively you will be handling the change resulting from your goal attainment. Describe how key "significant others'' in your life will cope successfully with your change. Save this tape for future reference. 

Write out a description of the goal attainment scenario, and keep it handy for future reference.

When you are in a relaxed state, listen to the tape and read your description of the scenario every day for two weeks.

Step 5:   Refer back to the tape and script as time goes on until you have reached full attainment of your goal.