Text of the meditation
You can help others only in so far as you have uplifted and purified yourself. A truth is first perceived, and afterwards realised. The perception may be instantaneous; the realisation is almost invariably a process of gradual unfoldment. You will have to learn to love, regarding yourself as a child; and as you make progress in learning, the Divine will unfold within you.
You can learn to love only by constantly meditating upon Love as a divine principle, and by adjusting, day by day, all your thoughts and words and acts to it. Watch yourself closely, and when you think, or say, or do anything that is not born of pure, unselfish love, resolve that you will guard yourself in that direction from then on.
By so doing you will grow purer, tenderer and holier every day, and soon you will find it easy to love, and will realise the Divine within you. When love is perfected and revealed in the heart, Christ is known.
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.
