Text of the meditation
When Christ is disputed about, Christ is lost. It is no less selfish and sinful to cling to opinion than to cling to impure desire. Knowing this, the good person gives themselves up unreservedly to the Spirit of Love, and dwells in Love toward all, contending with none, condemning none, hating none, but loving all, seeing behind their opinions, their creeds and their sins into their striving, suffering and sorrowing hearts. "Whoever loves their life will lose it." Eternal life belongs to the one who will obediently relinquish their petty, narrowing, sin-loving, strife-producing personal self, for only by doing so can they enter into the large, beautiful, free and glorious life of abounding Love.
Herein is the Path of Life; for the Straight Gate is the Gate of Goodness. The narrow way is the Way of Renunciation, or self-sacrifice.
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.
