Text of the meditation
Abstinence, sobriety and self-control are good. Do your duty with the utmost faithfulness, putting away all thought of reward. Let no thought of pleasure or self entice you from your duty. Do not interfere with the duties of others. Be upright in all things. Under the most severe trial, though your happiness and life should seem to be at stake, do not swerve from the right.
The person of unconquerable integrity is invincible; they cannot be confounded, and they escape the painful mazes of doubt and bewilderment. If anyone should abuse or accuse or speak ill of you, remain silent and self-controlled, striving to understand that the wrong-doer cannot injure you unless you retaliate and allow yourself to be carried away by the same wrong condition of mind.
Strive, also, to meet the evil-doer with compassion, seeing how they are injuring themselves. The pure-minded cannot think, "I have been injured by another." They know no enemy but self.
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.
