Text of the meditation
Make yourself pure and lovable, and you will be loved by all. Think of your servants with kindness, consider their happiness and comfort, and never demand of them that extremity of service that you yourself would not care to perform were you in their place. Rare and beautiful is that humility of soul by which a servant entirely forgets themselves in their master's good; but far rarer, and more beautiful with a divine beauty, is that nobility of soul by which a person, forgetting their own happiness, seeks the happiness of those under their authority, who depend on them for their bodily sustenance.
And such a person's happiness is increased tenfold, nor do they need to complain of those they employ. Said a well-known and extensive employer of labour, who never needs to dismiss an employee: "I have always had the happiest relations with my workpeople. If you ask me how it is to be accounted for, I can only say that it has been my aim from the first to do to them as I would wish to be done by." Be friendly toward others, and friends will soon flock round you.
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.
