IMAGINATION AND KNOWLEDGE

Human beings are the highest form of living creature on earth. Mental attributes like memory, intelligence, emotion, perceptions and social behaviour, similar to human beings have also been observed in many animals. Also the physiological needs of animals are similar to that of human beings. But in respect to human beings there is a big difference and that is  their ability to imagine and mentally create visual imagery of what he is imagining. Mentally they can go back or ahead of their time. This unique ability of man to imagine, categorises the human beings as the most highly evolved creatures on earth. It is with this ability man is able to penetrate into the depth of nature in the physical world and also to the depths of their inner self for self-exploration which is the spiritual self. With this phenomenal ability, he has been able to discover phenomenon in the distant galaxies to elucidating the structure of our genetic material DNA. The former being the macro cosmos and the latter being the microcosmos which constitutes the ultimate elements of life.In this process he is thus attempting to find a relation and place of man with respect to the universe. These all are with the fundamental intent of trying to find the origin of the universe at the macrocosmic level and origin of life at the microcosmos level.  In all these and the continuing contribution, man has reflected his enormous capability through his power of imagining things that are beyond the visible physical world. However, this mental faculty of man is not only applicable to scientists but also to writers, poets, artists, performing artists and fine arts too. Though their imagination faculty does not add anything to the material physical world , they enormously enrich the social, cultural, moral and spiritual traditions which are equally important for enhancing the human values that are essential aspects for sustenance of a civilized society.

And that is why one of the greatest genius of all time  Albert Einstein had very rightly said “ IMAGINATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWLEDGE ”. On a little introspection anybody can understand the import of these words. What he has meant by these words is that thru imagination one gains access to knowledge. As the basis of everything that has been discovered and those yet to be discovered, what all has been created or yet to be created, everything springs from this human ability to imagine. Thus knowledge whether pertains to the physical world or that of the non-physical i.e. subtle world, everything comes from imagination. And that is the reason why people need to cultivate this habit of imaging things beyond the existing available information on any particular stream of human activity. This only can lead to creativity in any stream of human endeavour.