Text of the meditation
Knowledge is for those who seek; Wisdom crowns those who strive; Peace speaks in sinless silence: all things perish, Truth survives. Increase your strength and self-reliance; make the spectres of your mind obey your will. See that you command yourself, and let no mood, no subtle passion, no swift desire hurl you to baseness; but should you be hurled, rise, and regain your strength, taking from your fall a gain of lowliness and wisdom.
Strive ever for the mastery of your mind, and glean some good from every circumstance that confronts you; make your store of strength richer for ills encountered and overcome. Submit to nothing but nobleness; rejoice like a strong athlete straining for the prize, when your full strength is tried.
Follow where Virtue leads, high and still higher; listen where Pureness pleads; quench not her fire. Behold, they will see Reality who come upward, cleansed from all desire.
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.
