Text of the meditation
A person is the doer of their own deeds; as such, they are the maker of their own character. The things that befall a person are the reflections of themselves; the destiny that pursued them, which they were powerless to escape by effort or avert by prayer, was the relentless ghoul of their own wrong deeds demanding and enforcing restitution; the blessings and curses that come to them unbidden are the reverberating echoes of the sounds they themselves sent forth.
A person finds themselves involved in the train of causation. Their life is made up of causes and effects. It is both a sowing and a reaping. Each act of theirs is a cause that must be balanced by its effects. They choose the cause (this is Free-will); they cannot choose, alter or avert the effect (this is Fate).
Thus Free-will stands for the power to initiate causes, and destiny is involvement in effects. Character is destiny.
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.
