I invite you to relax into your next breath,
Just watching without making any change to the breath,
Without changing the rhythm or the depth,
And just for a moment to watch what's happening right now.
And if you like,
Allow the breath to deepen and notice the expansion of air,
The expansion of your chest,
And the lightness that starts to rise up in your awareness.
And in your mind's eye,
Imagine a candlelight on a windless day,
The candlelight,
The light of the candle coming straight up,
Curving to the top and forming just that tiny little point at the top of the candlelight.
And noticing the flame,
Notice the wick and the candle,
The wax.
Is the flame attached to the wick?
What does it hover over?
Right at the edge,
The tip of the wick,
Is a tiny space and a little bit of blue color.
And then the flame of the candle extends out and it's white or yellow on its upper top outside edges,
And a yellowish orange color sitting on what might be a red or blue or a black flame over the wick and surrounding it,
But not quite touching,
Just hovering.
Now the flame needs the wick and the wax in order for the flame to exist,
And it consumes the wick and the wax.
And in the same way,
The soul hovers over the body,
And in a similar manner consumes the body during our lifetime.
Both the flame and the soul need something of substance in order to allow it to be,
And the soul and the flame consume that substance.
In the case of the candle,
A relatively short time.
And in the case of our bodies,
A much longer but still a finite time being consumed and consumed and consumed.
So going back to the image of the flame of the candle.
The presence of God from a mystical standpoint surrounds everything,
Is inside of everything,
And is even more than everything.
And yet from our senses,
Our perception,
We see the crystallization,
The manifestation of God through the flame of the candle.
We see the light,
Our sense takes the light in,
But that's really a substratum of God,
A reflection of God coming through the candle as light.
And we feel the warmth,
The heat from the flame,
Our body sense of touch and sensation takes in that warmth.
And we can even perceive the smell of light at night,
The dew settles on the ground,
And in the morning,
The sunlight comes out and starts to affect and warm up all of the earth,
And the aroma of the earth rises up and we can breathe that in.
So we have the other sense of the light coming in through the sense of smell.
As well as the sense of taste,
The light comes in from the taste of the foods that we eat that grow on the earth that need the sunlight for the growth to occur.
So the light comes in through those senses and the light comes in through the ears,
The sense of light,
Of love,
Of hearing somebody say,
I love you,
Brings that light into your heart,
Into your mind.
And also the thoughts in the mind of loving another is to see the face of God.
