Text of the meditation
Humanity is essentially divine. For so long have people dwelt in the habitations of sin that they have at last come to regard themselves as native to it, and as cut off from the Divine Source, which they believe to be outside and away from them. A human being is primarily a spiritual being, and as such is of the nature and substance of the Eternal Spirit, the Unchangeable Reality, which people call God.
Goodness, not sin, is their rightful condition; perfection, not imperfection, is their heritage, and this a person may enter into and realise now if they will grant the condition, which is the denial or abandonment of self, that is, of their feverish desires, their proud will, their egotism and self-seeking: all that which St.
Paul calls the "natural man." Jesus, in His divine goodness, knew the human heart, and He knew that it was good.
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.
