Text of the meditation
If we could suffer, even partly, through others, our sufferings would be unjust. Are our sufferings and troubles entirely the result of our own ignorance and wrong-doing, or are they partly or wholly brought about by others, and by outward conditions? Our sufferings are just, and are entirely the result of our own ignorance, error and wrongdoing. "You suffer from yourselves; none else compels." If this were not so, if a person could commit an evil deed and escape, the consequences of that deed being visited upon an innocent person, then there would be no Law of Justice, and without such a Law the universe could not exist, even for a single moment.
All would be chaos. On the surface, people appear to suffer through others, but this is only an appearance, an appearance that a deeper knowledge dispels. A person is not the result of outward conditions; outward conditions are the result of the person.
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.
