Imagination and the Lower Self

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Something in us may resist the idea that we are in imagination almost all of the time. We may not see ourselves as dreamers or idle talkers. The only way to verify the power of imagination is to make a sincere attempt to stop it. How do you do this? Try to be present. Try to be present right now, and while you are being present to yourself, listen to what is around you. Look at what is in front of you. Be present to this.

We can make this effort for a period of time. After a while, the effort will have stopped. If we had made a persistent enough effort to be present, then not long afterward we will notice that we are back in imagination. But--and this is important--we will not have noticed the moment that we passed from presence back into imagination. And why did we not notice this?

We did not notice this because the lower self lured us away from presence with some distraction. The lower self, at some inconspicuous moment, told us that something else was necessary for us to think about or look at, and so we stopped being present and went back into imagination.