Imagination becomes a ladder on the path of the mystic. Besides, if it were not for the imagination there would have been no art, there would have been no literature, there would have been no music; these are all outcomes of imagination. Imagination can create beauty of much higher and greater value when it is directed inward. Naturally, the mystic begins his work with the ladder of imagination, and actual experience follows.
— Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, In Search of the Hidden Treasure