Text of the meditation
As errors and impurities are revealed, purge them away. Every step upward means leaving something behind and below. The high is reached only at the sacrifice of the low. The good is secured only by abandoning the evil. Knowledge is acquired only by the destruction of ignorance.
Every acquisition has its price, which must be paid "to the uttermost farthing." Every animal, every creeping thing, possesses some gift or power which humanity, in its upward march, has laid down, exchanging it for some higher gift or power. What great good people forfeit by clinging to old selfish habits!
Behind every humble sacrifice a winged angel waits to bear us up the heights of knowledge and wisdom. Let those who have attained guard against falling back. Let them be careful in little things, and well fortified against the entrance of sin. Aim, with ardour, for the attainment of a perfect life.
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.
