Candle meditation

Many years ago my mother taught me how to do candle meditation in my imagination. Mind you, she didn't call it meditation; she called it self-hypnosis. But it was certainly a powerful meditative practice. I first did it when I was a little girl and it helped me relax.

These instructions are from The Meditation Society of Australia website:

Imagine the candle as an entrance way to the vast spiritual dimensions permeating everything, imagine it as the doorway to the inner universe. You might see this candle flame standing at the threshold between the physical and spiritual universes.

As you fix your gaze upon it, feel that you are looking at the candle with your heart and that you are travelling through it with infinite peace.

Follow the flow of energy with your breath.

Breathe in the infinite peace of the spiritual universe. Feel your heart opening and expanding as that peace flows into your being like a golden light.

On your outward breath feel that your worries and anxieties which give birth to all your mental, emotional and physical tensions, are being gathered up and released.

You might imagine this is as a flow of light. You are breathing in a golden white light that is illumining your being with peace, and the darkness that is your tension in all its flavours, you are letting go.

Try this at first using a literal candle. Then try simply visualizing the candle. Both are valuable practices.