Text of the meditation
Whoever has realised the Love that is divine has become a new person. And this Love, this Wisdom, this Peace, this tranquil state of mind and heart, may be attained, may be realised, by all who are willing and ready, and who are prepared to humbly enter into a comprehension of all that the giving up of self involves.
There is no arbitrary power in the universe, and the strongest chains of fate by which people are bound are self-forged. People are chained to what causes suffering because they desire to be so, because they love their chains, because they think their little dark prison of self is sweet and beautiful, and they are afraid that if they desert that prison they will lose all that is real and worth having. "You suffer from yourselves; none else compels; none other holds you, that you live and die." To the divinely wise, knowledge and Love are one and inseparable.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
