The Power of Imagination

Saturday February 12 2005 10:15 IST

By Karmayogi

Wishes are not horses to make beggars kings. But wishes are often fulfilled. Churches and temples become famous as centres of wish fulfilment. The wish has a will in it. The power of that will depends upon the knowledge of it.

The power of that knowledge is determined by the truth of that knowledge. Wishes of strong will, clear knowledge and pure intention come true in time. Others do not.

Imagination is described as a faculty of mind by Sri Aurobindo that is able to see a future possibility and energise it with mental power. That way, one’s imagination has the power to actualise what it imagines when that imagination captures a true possibility of the future.

Hire purchase is 150 years old. When there was a glut in the market, traders offered to sell consumer goods on instalment to those who were reliable. As days passed and even the glut disappeared, hire purchase came to stay as a sales method. Theoretically, by hire purchase one is enabled to buy now with his future income, i.e. he is able to enjoy the benefits of his future income.

Philosophically, it means the future comes into the present, i.e., Time is abridged. Of course, progress means abridgement of time and abridgement of space. Rulers and administrators emerged out of experience, came from aristocratic families. Some four or five hundred years ago education began to spread in Europe.

It was there in China earlier. Those who were educated at a young age could become rulers or especially administrators. That class came to be known as the intelligentsia. Here too time was abridged as one acquired knowledge by education and not by experience.

Hire purchase is a boon if people are honest. Someone exercised his mind about how prosperous the nation would be if one were allowed to enjoy NOW the full benefit of all his future earnings. Of course, it was a thought, rather imagination. He picked up a particular case where he knew the present salary, future service, etc.

He worked out in his MIND all the ramifications of such a possibility. The figures of such results were staggering, even in imagination. After five years, the employee’s organisation introduced exactly a similar scheme and awarded him a figure offering to retire him.

That figure exactly tallied with the figured arrived at by the imagination. But there was one minor difference. There was an added benefit of no work and a pension. Imagination is not fantasy. Imagination, based on precise knowledge and power of mind can realise itself. In Mother, it can always have an extra benefit.