Text of the meditation
Law cannot be partial. It is an unvarying mode of action: disobeying it, we are hurt; obeying it, we are made happy. It is no less kind that we should suffer the penalty of our wrong-doing than that we should enjoy the blessedness of our right-doing. If we could escape the effects of our ignorance and sin, all security would be gone, and there would be no refuge, for we could then be equally deprived of the result of our wisdom and goodness.
Such a scheme would be one of caprice and cruelty, whereas law is a method of justice and kindness. Indeed, the supreme law is the principle of eternal kindness, faultless in working and infinite in application. It is none other than that "Eternal Love, forever full, forever flowing free," of which the Christian sings, and the "Boundless Compassion" of Buddhist precept and poetry.
Every pain we suffer brings us nearer to the knowledge of the Divine Wisdom.
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.
