Alright people, take this one slow. There's a lot of different ideas going on here, but this is firstly about the way our minds actually work. Please give this time to consider, you won't regret it even if you decide I'm full of shit.
Meditation or prayer practice in almost all cultures are actually often huge misinterpretations of the process of cultivating what Jung called an Active Imagination or what others may call Enlightenment, where we can fudge our senses into hallucinating based on whatever signifiers we focus on. In plain speech, it's the ability to observe the flow between your conscious and subconscious and reprogram it all at will (yes, even to vividly hallucinate and lucid dream, as Carl Jung achieved among tons of others). There are many methods to do this, like Three Point Breathing or Chakra Breathing to name popular ones. This is really really important and I will be sad if you don't remember this: a lot of people might actually achieve this ability, too, through their dogmas, but never realize it and merely deem themselves "sensitive," their unique perceptions forever embedded in a false ideology or "Archetypal reality." And I'm talking some hardcore, dreamlike, dissociative, walk-on-the-moon hallucinations here as well. So many monks, priests, churchgoers, psychics, mediums, and anyone else who breathes has these stories and it turns out it's a legit but poorly understood use of our brains, often ending in bullshit superstitions. These aren't mystical psychic powers, but certainly the closest thing to it, and what Buddhists and alchemists and Taoists and others who get it are actually talking about.
The point of all that religion-wise is to prove to yourself that the world isn't really what it appears to be and that you can tear an existential and perceptual rift in it and explore new ones, hopefully gaining insight toward a perceived truth. We're really just incoherently tripping out together all the time, though, as our most coherent theories seem to indicate. We've just culturally tripped into the banal and mundane with an acceptance of some separate higher "spirit" rather than attempting to understand our conscious experience for what it is, the actual formless and guiding individualized thingy people wave their hands about. It's our language, our bodies and our environment, nothing more and nothing less. Turns out we're all responsible for all of that and can exert some amount of control on that based on our health and focus and the depth of our understanding of physical reality.
"To know is to possess, & any fact is possessed by everyone who knows it, whereas those who feel the truth are possessed, not possessors." - E.E. Cummings
Our Active Imagination is something we can learn to use to great benefit instead of being at its mercy, especially when someone else is using it when you aren't (i.e. cultural engineering and organized religions, liars and cheats, stage magic, movie magic, etc.). Or, as Carl Jung put it, don't you want to "taste the waters of the soul's own essence?" Many famous artists and mathematicians employed this method to help their work, too, from Archimedes to Einstein and in all forms. It's taught in many entrepreneur and psychology schools today and is utilized by many intellectuals in many ways to assist their work and their overall well-being. It's directly linked to greater creativity and willpower, better problem solving and social skills, and overall a healthier and broader outlook on life. It is a powerful method to help overcome trauma, bad habits, and obsessions as well, as Jung's methods were developed to treat.
Overall, Active Imagination stands as an extremely effective tool to tap into your brain's potential - often unconsciously locked up in those traumas and bad habits as Jung realized. This is why it is vital to train your Active Imagination, it affects every other aspect of your life down to the very light you see things in. Given slow and cautious understanding, you may find yourself opening up to the vast realities out there, or the infinite as some philosophies call it, but with a way that immerses you in it conscientiously and realistically. The Buddha himself lamented the original ideas behind mental training like this would be lost to time and exploitation and, well, he was right. I'm pretty sure he sat under a tree and worked on his method for 20 years just so no one else would have to, and we could all just get to the point of life instead. Who wants to go mad today? Oh, and it only takes 10-15 minutes of practice a day to do.
Active Imagination and Hypnagogia - What
Active Imagination and Hypnagogia - How
The Image-Making Capacity of the Soul - Depth Psychology Alliance
The Science Behind Magic and the Occult
Zen Economics, On Contact with Chris Hedges Episode 11
What is the Stream of Consciousness? - School of Life
Dan Siegel's Wheel of Awareness (a newer, very effective Active Imagination-type exercise): Soundcloud link
Here's the entrepreneur's version:
Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain (2009 google talk)
Sample Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVkhEWgSBTI
"A man has free will only to the extent that he knows who he is."
"Your ego has about as much control over what goes on as a child sitting next to his father in a car with a plastic steering wheel... most of the goings on in you, around you - the circumstances of life have nothing to do with your ego at all. And you don't even know why you make up your mind to do certain things." - Alan Watts
Let Go of Attachment
