The Power of Imagination

Imagine this. You are at your home and decide to slice up a lemon in half. You walk to the kitchen, open the refrigerator and pick out the freshest lemon inside. You place it on the counter. Now you take the sharpest knife you have, into your hands and carefully hold the lemon with the other hand. You slice it in half, revealing the translucent pulp inside. You take a half, and squeeze some of that sour goodness on to your tongue. You cringe. Do you feel yourself salivating at that thought?

The mind is our internal playground. A place where we can be whoever we want to. A sanctuary of make believe, where we can see the world as we want to see it. The constant passage of signals in the neural network of the brain is what we call thoughts. Thoughts, which when combined to form meaning and sense, become imagination.

From the abstract to the classical to the sane and insane, all are your perceptions of the world around us. All are the ways we choose to see this world. It’s because of these varied perceptions of the world that we have been able to advance so much in such little time. The minds of millions of people working at the same time for different causes and reasons leading to one final goal, progress. The imagination of a million people.

Imagination is a “Dreamlike” diversion for us. A series of new thoughts, all created by our mind in a fraction of a second. Often a bad or a good dream can set the tone of the day ahead of us. A good dream will give us a jolly start whereas a bad one can make us want to not even leave our home! Our imagination and reality are closely intertwined. Often our thoughts can seriously affect our decision making capabilities.

Ever seen a black cat cross your path? What do you do? Do you wait for another person to "clear the way" or do you perform some other "ritual". If your imagination of consequences can lead to the altering of your behaviour in certain situations like the one mentioned above, your imagination has affected your reality.

Imagination is what helps us handle the insults that life deals us. It’s simply putting mind over matter. A famous example of this is of Colonel George Hall, A prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was made to stay in a small dark chamber for seven grueling years. While he was there, he played golf. No, not literally, but in his head. For seven years he played a full game of golf in his head. After his release, he eventually took part in the New Orleans open and shot a 76!

Such is the power of our mind. It can bind you with the shackles of fear, of doubt, of apathy to make you weak, self-doubting and cowardly or it can make you soar the heights of the limitless bright blue sky and make you the god of your own world. Yes, all this power is well within our reach. This pool of power which resides between your ears, within your brain can be harnessed by you, but the question is... are you ready for it?

-          Ashutosh Katoch