Text of the meditation
The incentive to self-sacrificing labour does not reside in any theory about the universe, but in the spirit of love and compassion. The spirit of love does not decrease when a person realises that perfect justice prevails in the spiritual government of the world; on the contrary, it is increased and intensified, for they know that people suffer because they do not understand, because they err in ignorance. "The comfortably conditioned" are frequently involved in greater suffering than the poor, and, like others, are garnering their own mixed harvest of happiness and suffering.
This teaching of Absolute Justice is no more encouraging for the rich than for the poor, for while it tells the rich who are selfish and oppressive, or who misuse their wealth, that they must reap the results of all their actions, it also tells the suffering and oppressed that, as they are now reaping what they have formerly sown, they may, and surely will, by sowing the good seeds of purity, love and peace, shortly reap a harvest of good as well, and so rise above their present woes.
The painful consequences of all self-seeking must be met and passed through.
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.
