"As both meditation and visualization gain traction in our repertoire of holistic practices, it can be easy to bundle them together as being one and the same. However, they’re more like sisters who wear each other’s clothes from time to time. Not all meditation is visualized, and not all visualization is meditation.
Consider a Venn diagram. There is one circle that comprises “visualization” as it’s own body of practice, and one circle that comprises “meditation.” As with most Venn diagrams, there is a sweet spot where the two circles overlap, and it’s here that visualization meditation lives. One simple question to discern whether your visualization is, indeed, meditation, is: does this visualization exist in the present moment?"