I am not a collection of members which we call the human body: I am not a subtle air distributed through these members, I am not a wind, a fire, a vapour, a breath, nor anything at all which I can imagine or conceive; because I have assumed that all these were nothing. Without changing that supposition I find that I only leave myself certain of the fact that I am somewhat.

Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.

Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.

All that we refer to as being ours – our body, our mind, our emotions – is not what we are, essentially.

The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

Sometimes I don't feel as if I'm a person at all. I'm just a collection of other people's ideas.

I'll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me.

The most important factor in every function is: ‘Is it under our control or not?’ So when imagination is under our control we do not even call it imagination; we call it by various names — visualization, creative thinking, inventive thinking — you can find a name for each special case. But when it comes by itself and controls us so that we are in its power, then we call it imagination. Again, there is another side of imagination which we miss in ordinary understanding. This is that we imagine non-existent things — non-existent capacities, for instance. We ascribe to ourselves powers which we do not have; we imagine ourselves to be self-conscious although we are not. We have imaginary powers and imaginary self-consciousness and we imagine ourselves to be one, when really we are many different ‘I’s. There are many such things that we imagine about ourselves and other people. For instance, we imagine that we can ‘do’, that we have choice; we have no choice, we cannot ‘do’, things just happen to us.

I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.

Myself, I am nothing, If I am anything it is because of my companions. An axe cannot chop wood without its handle. I also cannot do anything without my companions and friends who work with me. They are as important as a thumb is in hand.

But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses.

I am really only myself when I’m somebody else whom I have endowed with these wonderful qualities from my imagination.

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I have feelings, but I am not my feelings. I have desires, but I am not desires. I have wishes, but I am not those wishes. I have intense pleasure and excruciating pain, but I am neither of those. I have a body, but I am not my body. I have a mind, but I am not my mind. All those can be seen, but I am the seer; all those can be known, but I am the knower; all those are merely objects, but I am a real subject or true self, not any passing parts and pieces and objects and things. I am not thoughts, not feelings, not desires, not body, not mind, not this, not that.

How to use my imagination so as to strengthen me instead of making me weak.