Text of the meditation
The greatest blessedness comes to the one who infuses into their mind the purest and noblest thoughts. We are becoming wise when we know and realise that happiness abides in certain habits of mind, or mental characteristics, rather than in material possessions, or in certain combinations of circumstances.
It is a common delusion to imagine that if one only possessed this or that (a little more money, a little more leisure, this person's talent or that person's opportunities; or if one had better friends, or more favourable surroundings) one would be happy with a perfect felicity.
Alas! Discontent and misery lie in such vain wishes. If happiness is not already found within, it will never be found without. The happiness of a wise mind abides through all vicissitudes. Your whole life is a series of effects, having their cause in thought, in your own thought.
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.
