Realizing your dreams the effective way

There is a lot of literature about realizing one’s dreams. The fundamental steps are identifying your dreams, writing them down, getting to know the ‘why’ behind them, and visualizing the dreams as though they are a reality.

All these are essential and effective ways for achieving and fulfilling your dreams. However, when you add one more fundamental building block, it makes the realization of dreams more real, more effective and faster.

That fundamental building block is to identify and manifest the qualities and abilities you need to have, the traits you need to have, in order to make those dreams a reality. It is a process of figuring out the ideal person you need to be in order to realize those dreams. It is a process of transforming and transmuting yourself into that person. When you visualize yourself being all that it takes to manifest the dreams and become that person, your dreams come to fruition more easily and quickly.

Realizing any dream that is worthwhile achieving requires many qualities, attributes, and traits. These may be courage, integrity with the self and others, compassion, hard work, humility, hope, fulfillment, etc. All these qualities and traits are the building blocks to achieving anything worthwhile, for realizing any dream.

When you possess and exhibit these traits, they are part of your personality, and they are yours permanently even as everything outside of you may be transient and ever-changing. All these qualities are a continuum. One can always have or exhibit more of them. Think of these qualities as being the foundation on which any kind of dream or desire can be built.

When you build a house, where are the steps? You start with a desire to construct the house and create a blueprint of it. You begin the construction by creating the foundations. Unless the foundation is ready, construction of the super-structure cannot start. The deeper the foundation, the more robust it is, the stronger the superstructure will be. The foundation is in a sense the DNA of the house because it shapes the house.

Similarly, who we are as a person, the qualities and attributes we have are the foundations on which our life unfolds. Think of getting clarity on one’s dreams as the equivalent of the desire to build the house. Visualizing the dreams as though they are a reality is the equivalent of constructing the house. Manifesting the qualities needed to realize the dreams is the equivalent of creating the foundations for the home.

Now that we have a clear idea of what it takes and who we need to become to realize our dreams, how do we get there? A starting point is to understand where we are falling short of these qualities, and why. We need to come face-to-face with who we truly are and look at the qualities and traits we have that are on the other side of the spectrum. These are the qualities that are preventing us from realizing our dreams and becoming the person we can be and are meant to be.

Acknowledging who we are is a hard thing to do because you are looking truthfully at yourself as is, without any veils on it. It is easier if we detach and observe ourselves as an outsider, and do it without judgment. Accept who you truly are without judging yourself to be either good or bad, without labeling yourself. Because who you truly are as a soul is beyond these qualities, beyond these traits, beyond your personality. The good, bad, and ugly parts of us constitute the whole of us, and we need to embrace them all with the same awareness and acceptance and love. When we do that, we begin the process of transforming and transmuting those aspects of ourselves that do not serve us into their counterparts which can propel us forward.

As we look deeper inside truthfully, and without judgment, we may find that we may be harboring qualities like fear, stress, insecurity, anger, guilt, etc. When you become aware of, acknowledge, and are in full acceptance of who you are without judgment, you have already taken the first step towards transforming them. However, be prepared that the transformation will not be overnight; instead, it will be an ongoing and continuous process. The good news is that you have direct power and control over these more than on the external events and people.

Now that we can look at our qualities and nature without judgment, and realize the gaps, you need to bridge them. And this is where visualization comes. Visualize yourself as a creator and an alchemist who can create and transform and transmute any quality or trait into the desired ones. Imagine yourself as shining the light and energy of your higher Self and converting each of the qualities that are not serving you into those that would help you. Visualize yourself possessing all the qualities and abilities and traits that are needed to realize your dreams. Viscerally feel how it is to have all those qualities, make it real in your mind’s eye. Fuse and become that person. You are transmuting who you are into who you want to be and meant to be. You are coming into Oneness, into Ekatvam, with your higher Self.

Think of realizing your dreams to consist of three steps:

• Getting clarity on what your dreams are and writing them down. You can get this clarity by aligning your soul and life purposes. When you do that, your dreams will be meaningful and fulfilling. You will understand the reasons and motivation behind them.
• Visualize your dreams as though they are a reality. Go deeper within yourself and vividly visualize you as already having realized them. Feel what you would feel, experience the things and people and events that would be in your life if you achieved your dreams. Make it real, let your mind and senses experience it.
• Visualize you possessing all the qualities and abilities needed to realize your dreams. Transmute and become that person as described above.

It is essential to articulate things properly. Instead of framing something negatively, you should frame it positively. Instead of focusing on what you do not want, focus on what you want. If you focus on the things that you do not want, the subconscious mind picks on the negative vibrations associated with them and amplifies them.

The most effective time to visualize your dreams is during your daily meditations if you already have a practice. If you want to start a meditation practice, you can choose to start with the simple and effective Bliss Meditation practice. During meditation, the mind is in a potent and still state, and hence the effectiveness of the visualizations is many-fold. Your mind becomes focused and single-pointed. It is very fertile and receptive to create deep and lasting impressions from the visualizations. The single-pointed mind is in communion with the universal consciousness and hence is permeable to send thoughts into the universal mind and to receive knowledge from it.

Another time when visualizations are more effective is just as you are falling asleep. When you sleep, while your conscious mind may be sleeping, the subconscious mind keeps on working silently in the background, without you even being aware. It is processing all the information that it received through the sensory and motor organs and correlating with its memory banks and thinking of permutations and combinations of solutions to the problems posed in the conscious brain. This subconscious part of your mind is non-judgmental; it does not distinguish between good and bad. It merely is processing all the information it received. The energies of the thoughts in the conscious mind are reflected in the subconscious mind and are amplified. The subconscious mind is charged, focused, and concentrated psychically, and can pierce into the cosmic consciousness to access its reservoir of knowledge and wisdom.

The more you do these visualizations, the sooner you will transition into that person who can realize your dreams, and the sooner you will realize your dreams. Once you start on this path, this idea of who you want to be as a person will always be in your mind because you have explicitly begun focusing on it. The more it is in your mind, the quicker the transition.