Text of the meditation
The strife of the world in all its forms has its origin in one common cause: individual selfishness. All the varied activities of human life are rooted in, and draw their vitality from, one common source: the human heart. The cause of all suffering and all happiness resides not in the outer activities of human life, but in the inner activities of the heart and mind; and every external agency is sustained by the life it derives from human conduct.
A person who cannot endure to have their errors and shortcomings brought to the surface and made known, but tries to hide them, is unfit to walk the highway of Truth. They are not properly equipped to battle with and overcome temptation. Whoever cannot fearlessly face their lower nature cannot climb the rugged heights of renunciation.
Each person comes under the laws of their own being, never under the laws of another.
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.
