In 1954, when TV remotes were science fiction, vinyl records were high tech and typewriters were automation, there was another belief that was popular that I'd like to talk to you about. It was the belief that running a four-minute mile was impossible. The human body was not capable of that speed. That was the very believable fact of the time, until Roger Bannister did it.

The year after Bannister broke the record (and the old belief system), 37 more runners did the same. The next year, 300 runners clocked in under four-minutes. In a more recent race, even the slowest runner dusted over the finish line in less than four minutes.

What if we could tell the 1954 consciousness that we'd be talking wireless on tiny flip phones, that we'd be listening to hours of mp3's on key chain sized "record-players”, that little kids would be printing out professional looking documents as third grade homework and that someone running a mile in less than four minutes would lose a race? The word "impossible” might start to lose its edge.

In the 50 years since Bannister crossed the finish line, innumerable impossibilities have become commonplace. Some of them have to do with age.

In 1904 when Philip Rabinowitz was born, the life expectancy for a white male was 46.6 years. This year (2004), he broke the record and entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest 100-meter run done by a 100-year-old. Guys like Bannister and Rabinowitz are worthy of our attention. Bannister had no evidence that he (or anyone) could do what he wanted to do. He made it real through his imagination. Everyone since him has had evidence that it could be done and so many runners hopped on that observational bandwagon.

Rabinowitz grew up in a time when the notion of being vital and active at a hundredyears- old was somewhere between biblical and fantasy.

So, what does all this have to do with you? Abraham* has often told us to observe less and imagine more. That's what these two runners did. And that's why their stories are here. Here's an Abraham quote that sums it up. "You have some choices. You can offer your vibration based upon what you are living or you can offer your vibration based upon what you are conjuring. In either case, the Universe will take you at your vibrational word and will respond to it.”

Two Knobs

While you are putting your socks on or cooking some soup or reading this article, you may not have it in your awareness that the air around you is full of radio waves. Unless you have the radio on, you don't think about it much and you certainly don't hear the broadcast. Even if you do have the radio blasting, you only

hear the station you are tuned in to. All the other oldies, sonatas and talk shows breeze right by you without the slightest notice.

Reality is very similar. There are numerous realities in the air all around you and you only live the one you are tuned in to. The point of our stories about Bannister and Rabinowitz is this: It is not only about which reality you tune in to. It is about which knob you use to do your tuning.

Your reality radio has two knobs. One knob allows you to tune into what you see, what you have lived, what evidence you have gathered in your life. When you use this observation knob, you tend to live the same thing you are observing. You tune it in, observe it and create it. Then you observe it again.

The other knob dials in your imagination. Many of us go through life completely unaware that there is another knob. These runners tuned in their trophies with the other knob. You and I can do that too.

Using the imagination knob gives you access to a completely different selection of stations, different realities to be lived. The imagination tuner allows you to create from a feeling. Abraham has told us, "Start imagining something that is more pleasing than what-is. And, when you spend more time with the vision of what you want, than you are with the reality of what-is, the reality of what-is will shift to the vision.” Creating from this vision allows you to break records, set trends and make history. But all those external measures of your new tuning knob pale in comparison to its true value. When you dial in your reality via imagination, you free yourself from the shackles of what you imagine other people's beliefs and judgments to be. The reality you live becomes filled with moments you love. Your life comes alive.

Tell Your Friend