Text of the meditation
Heaven is not a speculative thing beyond the tomb, but a real, ever-present Heaven in the heart. The only salvation recognised and taught by Jesus is salvation from sin, and the effects of sin, here and now; and this must be effected by utterly abandoning sin, which, once done, the Kingdom of God is realised in the heart as a state of perfect knowledge, perfect blessedness, perfect peace. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." A person must become a new creature, and how can they become new except by utterly abandoning the old?
That person's last state is worse than their first who imagines that, though still clinging to their old temper, their old opinionatedness, their old vanity, their old selfishness, they are made a new creature in some mysterious and unexplainable way by adopting some particular theology or religious formula.
Heaven is where Love rules, and where peace is never absent.
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.
