Greetings:
A long time ago Marcia and Mike lived in a world where they both believed there were positive and negative forces in the Universe. In that world it was common to practice (and to teach others) than when doing any meditative or astral work one should create a bubble of white light around him or herself in order to protect the meditator from those dark forces. This idea came into focus for them one night at a talk given by a very interesting gentleman. His talk had all of the right words, but the underlying energy behind them was really not good. Mike’s response to this was to create a circle of loving energy surrounding all those present; although he had his eyes closed at the time, Marcia saw the speaker’s response to this was to step outside of the circle, remove some herbs from his bag, and with few words…well, you get the idea. When Marcia and Mike went home that night everything was fine, but the next day Mike woke up with a high fever, delerious. He couldn’t walk, could barely stand, and he spent the next few days in bed while Marcia ministered to him.
It was shortly after this event that Marcia and Mike received some teaching on a New Way of Being. Rather than surrounding themselves with a loving white light, or drawing it in from above or below as others had suggested, they were told simply to imagine a candle in the center of their bodies. They were to simply allow the light of this candle to flow out from them, gently, in all directions. They were then to allow this loving light to grow and spread until they literally ‘became’ the candle, and this loving light was flowing out from their entire being. A candle doesn’t reach out to touch others with its light, it simply is itself, and in being itself its light spreads and illuminates. In this way the light comes from within, not from without, and rather than being a bubble of protection to keep away those dark energies, it simply transforms them into that same loving light. As the saying goes, “All of the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of one small candle.”
Well, time went by, their knowledge grew and their understandings of the nature of All That Is changed, and they began to see the world and the universe in which they lived as much bigger, more open and more dynamic than they had once imagined. As a part of this process they were able both to see the role they had once played in the event above and how their own beliefs had created it. Furthermore they were able to surrender their beliefs in those negative forces. As such, the idea of ‘being the candle’ no longer held the same significance for them.
Until one day, several years later, they came up with a different idea about ‘Being the Candle’.
Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View