Discovering Your Imagination and Candle Meditation

In this exercise a box is used as a focus for your meditation. As you visualize the box, let your imagination take over. Allow items in the box to �â'¬Å"appear�â'¬ï¿½, these represent your thoughts and feelings.

It may help to place an empty box in front of you and observe it for a few moments. When you are ready, close your eyes and picture the box in your mind's eye.

Imagine that the box represents your mind, and you open it to discover that it contains certain objects. What do you see inside the box? Are there items that represent your life, your personality or mood? Perhaps there are random objects that don't seem to make sense - they could be messages from your unconscious.

Imagine removing each item from the box. What feelings does each item arouse in you? Accept your feelings, whatever they might be. To end the meditation, imagine placing the items back in the box, and closing the lid. Take a few deep breaths and open your eyes.

Living In The Present

Meditation encourages us to focus the mind and concentrate our mental energies. If we are constantly dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we hinder our ability to be fully aware of the present. Meditation encourages us to awaken to the reality of today and, in doing so, offers us freedom not only from all that has been but also from all that will be.

Candle Meditation

This simple technique helps to settle the mind and provides a good focus for meditation.

Sit in a comfortable meditation posture with a lighted candle in front of you. Breathe evenly and a little more deeply than normal. Concentrate your attention on each part of your body in turn, saying to yourself, �â'¬Å"I relax easily and completely.�â'¬ï¿½ Focus your awareness on the flame: imagine that it enters your being and feel that it becomes a part of you.

Close your eyes, but hold the image of the candle and flame in your mind's eye. Carry the image into the depths of your mind. As you absorb inwardly the mental picture of the candle flame, lose any sense of its separateness, you inter-fuse with the flame as the flame inter-fuses with your being.

When you are ready, end the meditation by focusing on your breathing once more, breathe a little more deeply for one or two minutes, and then open your eyes.