Text of the meditation
Hatred severs human lives, fosters persecution, and hurls nations into ruthless war. People cry "Peace! Peace!" where there is no peace, but, on the contrary, discord, disquietude and strife. Apart from that wisdom which is inseparable from self-renunciation, there can be no real and abiding peace.
The peace that results from social comfort, passing gratification or worldly victory is transitory in its nature, and is burnt up in the heat of fiery trial. Only the Peace of Heaven endures through all trial, and only the selfless heart can know the Peace of Heaven.
Holiness alone is undying peace. Self-control leads to it, and the ever-increasing Light of Wisdom guides the pilgrim on their way. It is partaken of in a measure as soon as the path of virtue is entered upon, but it is realised in its fullness only when self disappears in the consummation of a stainless life.
This inward peace, this silence, this harmony, this love is the Kingdom of Heaven.
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.
