Text of the meditation
People are the makers of happiness and misery. Fixed attitudes of mind determine courses of conduct, and from courses of conduct come those reactions called happiness and unhappiness. This being so, it follows that to alter the reactive condition, one must alter the active thought.
To exchange misery for happiness, it is necessary to reverse the fixed attitude of mind and habitual course of conduct that is the cause of misery, and the reverse effect will appear in the mind and life. A person has no power to be happy while thinking and acting selfishly; they cannot be unhappy while thinking and acting unselfishly.
Wherever the cause is, there the effect will appear. A person cannot abrogate effects, but they can alter causes. They can purify their nature; they can remould their character. There is great power in self-conquest; there is great joy in transforming oneself. Each person is circumscribed by their own thoughts.
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.
