Monday - April 02, 2007

What Are Visions?

The subject of visions is vast. Anyone who gives you a simple/simplistic definition or analysis is either very ignorant or putting you on. (This is true of just about any simple “answer.”)

Some visions are seeing subtle levels of existence that normally are not seen. Some are projections of our inner (higher and lower) mind–usually for communication with us. Some are messages from other intelligences, using visual rather than verbal symbols. Some are exactly what they seem to be while others are totally symbolic. Some are incomplete; others are not. Visions are true, false, or mixed.

Ramana Maharshi

So how can we figure them out? Often we can’t. The best advice is that given by Sri Ramana Maharshi: “Visions do occur. To know how you look you must look into a mirror, but do not take that reflection to be yourself. What is perceived by our senses and the mind is never the truth. [He means this in the ultimate sense. Even hallucinations are “real” mental phenomena.] All visions are mere mental creations, and if you believe in them, your progress ceases. Enquire to whom the visions occur. Find out who is their witness. Stay in pure awareness, free from all thoughts. Do not move out of that state.”

As someone who grew up with visionaries and as a yogi have had visions beyond number myself, I assure you this is the best attitude.

Visions may be true or false, positive or negative. How do we judge? Many times we cannot, and that is why the masters of wisdom counsel us to basically ignore them altogether.

Higher intelligences, God, and our own Self communicate through a kind of KNOWING that arises in us. This is trustworthy. Even Saint Teresa of Avila, the great mystic, wrote that visions are chancy and of much less value than inner knowing: spiritual intuition (which she called “intellectual visions”).

Once we begin accepting visual “revelations” we are on a very dangerous path indeed. I have seen many people either trivialized or ruined by accepting everything they saw as truth. Some have even come to think that their every dream is a spiritual vision. I knew one woman who dreamed her husband was cheating on her, so when we woke up she starting beating and cursing him!

Many times people have visions that prove to be true, so they begin to trust everything. Then they have a very serious “message” which they follow and fall into disaster. It is as though they are being led along and trapped. Like when gamblers let a sucker win a few times and then wipe him out.

It is when the senses–even if inner ones–get involved that we must be wary and avoid trouble. Intuition or clairsentience is another matter. That comes from the intellect, not the lower, sensory mind. That is much more trustworthy. But even there we must be careful. That which arises from within, from our Self–and from God who is the core of our Self–is the only absolutely sure thing. Still, we work with what we get, but work discriminatingly.

–Swami Nirmalananda Giri