happen. (Remember, we leave the how to a greater mind, and they must
have known this.)
Now, some in their day might have called them unrealistic. In fact, they
were completely unrealistic, and so were their dreams. The event they were
embracing in thought, action, and emotion was not realistic, because the
reality had not yet occurred. The ignorant and the cynical might also have
said their vision was nonsense, and such naysayers would have been right—
a vision of future reality was “non-sense”; it existed in a reality beyond the
senses.
As another example, Joan of Arc was considered foolhardy, even insane.
Her ideas challenged the beliefs of her time and made her a threat to the
present political system. But once her vision was made manifest, she was
considered profoundly virtuous.
When one holds a dream independent of the environment, that’s
greatness. Coming up, we’ll see that overcoming the environment is
inextricably linked with overcoming the body and time. In Gandhi’s case,
he was not swayed by what was happening in his outer world
(environment), he didn’t worry about how he felt and what would happen to
him (body), and he didn’t care how long it would take to realize the dream
of freedom (time). He simply knew that all of these elements would sooner
or later bend to his intentions.
For all of the giants in history, is it possible that their ideas were thriving
in the laboratory of their minds to such an extent that to their brains, it was
as though the experience had already happened? Can you, too, change who
you are by thought alone?
Mental Rehearsal:
How Our Thoughts Can Become Our Experience
Neuroscience has proven that we can change our brains—and therefore
our behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs—just by thinking differently (in other
words, without changing anything in our environment). Through mental
rehearsal (repeatedly imagining performing an action), the circuits in the
brain can reorganize themselves to reflect our objectives. We can make our
thoughts so real that the brain changes to look like the event has already