Text of the meditation
If you would enter into possession of profound and abiding peace, come now and enter the path of meditation. Select some portion of the day in which to meditate, and keep that period sacred to your purpose. The best time is the very early morning, when the spirit of repose is upon everything.
All natural conditions will then be in your favour; the passions, after the long bodily fast of the night, will be subdued, the excitements and worries of the previous day will have died away, and the mind, strong and yet restful, will be receptive to spiritual instruction.
Indeed, one of the first efforts you will be called upon to make will be to shake off lethargy and indulgence, and if you refuse you will be unable to advance, for the demands of the spirit are imperative. The sluggard and the self-indulgent can have no knowledge of Truth.
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.
