Ways to open images

1. Experience of the Energy Body (image emerges from the felt experience).
2. Spontaneous images arising out of a samadhi state. Where the perception of things, of body, of world, et cetera, is a bit less substantial, it’s more fertile for images.
3. Images can arise from experiences of strong emotion – hold the experience of the emotion in the being (primarily the body)
4. Deliberately imagining (dream, figure, archetype, memory that felt imaginal)
5. Opening a gateway of the imagination. – walking down a flight of stairs in one’s imagination… an open field etc.
6. Daydreaming and then catching an image with resonance.

Tips for relating to images

1. Don’t make demands of / kill the image
   – Don’t ask it give you something or explain something to you
   – Don’t demand it have a clear or fixed meaning
   – Don’t demand it be “nice” or “spiritual”. Taboo, ugly, scary is fine.
2. Stay sensitive to the energy body / emotional body and trust a sense of aliveness above all else
3. If you feel connected, a sense of aliveness, thats all you need.
4. Remember images can arise in any sense modality: visual, sound, taste smell, kinesthetic (sense of movement). Or a combination.
5. Be sensitive to whether you are actively pushing/analyzing/coaxing the image through evaluation or planning. If so, try to pivot towards listening/receiving.