One early morning I was sitting in my room feeling oddly restless. Too much agitation. Had a lot to do that day, you know. And so to calm myself down I decided to meditate a bit.
I chose a candle.
I remember looking at candles a lot when I was a kid. I found them beautiful. Warm, dazzling, delicate…dangerous. Beautiful!
And yet when I look at them these days they seem little more than nice-smelling toiletries. What a damn shame!
So I closed my eyes and imagined a candle in a dark room.
My memories took me to my family home in India. Then they took me to the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. Then to the grave of my grandfather buried in the shrine’s cemetery.
I found myself lighting a candle there.
But then, I returned to the imaginary candle I started with.
And for a moment I saw it. I saw it fully.
I saw its wax melting away as its wick burned and its flame reached out to the heavens. I saw my life passing by as my heart longed and my soul searched for the Spirit.
Overwhelmed, I returned to my room again knowing that:
This and your tree of life image makes me imagine the candle wax running down onto the table, creating rootlike shapes at its base and settling into the space even as the candle shortens and goes out.