Importance of Visioning

TAPPING INTO THE UNIVERSAL MIND

In visioning we tap into the Universal Mind and become receptive to the Divine Pattern of Perfection, which underlies all. We become aware of our true “destination”. This then allows us to “catch” the vision in our mind's eye, create a mental equivalent, or develop a strategy for accomplishing what is revealed in the visioning.

GENERAL VISIONING QUESTIONS

What is Spirit’s Highest Vision for (project, individual)?

What must I/we become to empower the vision?

What must be released?

What must be embraced?

Is there any other information that is needed in this moment?

Visioning - Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is visioning?

Becoming a space of deep listening available to hear spirit’s highest vision or idea. A process by which we hear, feel, see, and catch God’s plan for any particular project we are working on.

2. Is visioning different from visualization?

Yes. Visualization is mentally seeing the things that you wish to have or to do. An example is to visualize yourself giving a successful speech.

Visioning is “catching” God’s idea. We are not telling God what we want. We are sensing into a Divine Idea for us (or for that thing for which we vision) that is so wonderful it is beyond our imagination. We are opening the way for that which is unlimited to come into view—into our experience of life. We are volunteering ourselves as a place in consciousness that is available to allow the perfection and wholeness of the One Life to become manifest.

3. Why do we practice visioning?

There is a spiritual ideal, a perfect prototype, under girding everything that IS. In visioning we make ourselves available to become that idea. We are the conduits for the vision to be revealed.

15. I always get words, never pictures. What’s wrong?

Absolutely nothing! People receive in a variety of ways; pictures, feelings, a feeling tone, words, phrases, whole scenes. It is all good. It is all God.

18. Are visioning and strategy related?

Yes. The purpose of visioning is to catch the divine idea of a thing. Strategy involves HOW to bring something into manifestation. Visioning comes first, then strategy.

We bridge from visioning to strategy by first picking themes, dialoguing about the vision, and then eventually setting goals.

Excerpt
Taken from VISIONING
WORKBOOK. UNITED CHURCH OF
RELIGIOUS SCIENCE 2005

Rev. Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith Interview

Interview by Kathy Juline. This interview originally appeared in the December 1996 issue of Science of Mind® magazine.

(excerpt)

What exactly is visioning and how did you come to begin using it?

Visioning is a process by which we train ourselves to be able to hear, feel, see, and catch God's plan for our life or for any particular project we're working on. An organic process that has evolved for me as I grow spiritually, it is based on the idea that we're not here to tell God what do or to ask God for things but to absolutely be available for what God is already doing, to open ourselves up to catch what's already happening. My initial discoveries more than 20 years ago on my spiritual path allowed me to see that there is a bigger pattern of life, a level of reality beyond the mere human experiential life. These awarenesses shifted my perception tremendously and the visioning process developed as a way of applying that new insight.

How does a life based on visioning differ from one that is not?

A passage in Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” People who have no vision for their life are sleepwalking without a hint as to why they are here or what their purpose is. They are drifting along on the currents of the culture's beliefs of the day, whether those beliefs be good or bad. Actuarial tables tell us that so many people will die at a certain age or that a certain number of accidents will occur. People who don't have a vision and are not open to their purpose in life become these statistics. They are the average men and women who live out the collective beliefs of society and seem to be at the whim of forces outside themselves. But as spiritual beings made in the image and likeness of pure Spirit, we are so much more than that. Each of us is a composite spiritual idea containing every idea that infinite Mind has ever thought. When we begin to understand our purpose for being here, which is to be a revealer of love, then we can start to open ourselves up to God's vision for us and to discover our own unique way to deliver that love, our individual mechanism by which we can express that love.

What is the difference between our purpose in life and our vision?

Our purpose for being on the planet simply is to be an emanation or an expression of love. Anyone who has made a breakthrough into fourth-dimensional living or has had a near-death experience or a mystical realization will know this. We're here to love—to perfect, amplify, and express the unconditional divine love of God. That's our purpose.

God's vision for our life is the means or manner by which we bring forth that love. It's our heart's desire, our own unique way of expressing the love. I like to call it our delivery system. Whether that vision involves being a doctor or a teacher or whatever, it is the way we fulfill our purpose of expressing love. We're multidimensional, multifaceted beings, and there are many ways in which we express love, but each of us has a primary vision to catch or open up to, and that is the particular delivery system which enables us to serve our purpose of revealing love.

What happens to us as we open to the vision God has for our life and begin to live it?

We become less and less influenced by the popular or entrenched beliefs of a particular society or culture, and we become much more available to Spirit. We become inspired by the ideas held in the mind of God, and they begin to live and express through us. We begin to be able to articulate them and to live and embody and reveal them. The feeling we have is that we have come home. We are fulfilling our heart's desire, which is the same thing, I believe, as God's will for us. God's will is for the greater expression of life, of beauty, of everything that God is. Our heart's desire is generally about expressing ourselves, allowing our latent talents, gifts, and abilities to become actualized. When we express God's vision for our life, we feel fulfilled.

What is the difference between visioning and the technique of visualization?

Visualization is a beginning phase in metaphysics in which we mentally conceive of something we want. We imagine doing it or having it and we generate the feelings that would accompany the experience. Visualization involves having an idea of what we want to accomplish or how we want to live our life, then imaging that goal as already achieved and establishing the necessary mental and emotional vibrations to bring it forth and manifest it. Visualization is a beautiful and wonderful stage in our evolution, and it's very important.

When we do visioning, on the other hand, we align in consciousness with our divine purpose, which is to love and to express a greater degree of life. Then we open ourselves to catch a sense of how that expression is supposed to occur through us.

Visioning is for a higher purpose. Visioning lets the presence of God use us, which is what all the great mystics who have walked the planet have done. They haven't walked around telling God what to do or what they wanted. They came here to glorify God. It's the difference between saying, “There's a power for good in the universe, and I can use it,” and saying, “There's a power that can use me.” The latter statement suggests allowing ourselves to be available to the deeper levels of this Spirit that is everywhere and that is always expressing through and as each of us. We know we can't be destroyed, we know God's will is for good, and we know a greater order, better than we can imagine, is going to emerge, so we let God.

Whoever uses the visioning process in this way lifts us all, because it is a technique that allows us to realize we're at one with God, at one with the love that is everywhere. There are only divine ideas in the universe, whole, perfect, complete ideas. All we have to do is be receptive to these ideas, and then to expand our willingness to be at one with them, releasing anything within us that prevents them from expressing through us. When we align ourselves with divine ideas of joy, harmony, love, and wisdom, they uniquely express through us. The visioning process allows God to reveal Itself through us in infinite ways. We become a living embodiment of God's ideas if we let God work through us. It's our reason for being here. In periods of meditation we catch the spirit of the living God, which is everywhere in its wholeness. Each of us represents the totality of God and has the capacity to know that. With every greater increase in our awareness, we have more freedom and more creativity, because we know who we are.

Excerpt
Taken from VISIONING
WORKBOOK. UNITED CHURCH OF
RELIGIOUS SCIENCE 2005

Return from Visioning to Purpose Balance Life