Text of the meditation
Whoever would find how good at heart people are, let them throw away all their ideas and suspicions about the "evil" in others, and find and practise the good within themselves. A person has within them the divine power by which they can rise to the highest heights of spiritual achievement; by which they can shake off sin and shame and sorrow, and do the will of the Father, the Supreme Good; by which they can conquer all the powers of darkness within, and stand radiant and free; by which they can subdue the world and scale the lofty pinnacles of God.
This a person can accomplish, by choice, by resolve, and by their divine strength; but they can accomplish it only in and by obedience; they must choose meekness and lowliness of heart; they must abandon strife for peace, passion for purity, hatred for love, self-seeking for self-sacrifice, and must overcome evil with good.
This is the holy way of Truth; this is the safe and abiding salvation; this is the yoke and burden of the Christ.
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.
