Text of the meditation
There is no more painful bondage than to be at the mercy of one's inclinations. The Law is that the heart shall be purified, the mind regenerated, and the whole being brought into subjection to Love, until self is dead and Love is all in all, for the reign of Law is the reign of Love.
And Love waits for all, rejecting none. Love may be claimed and entered into now, for it is the heritage of all. Ah, beautiful Truth! To know that now a person may accept their divine heritage and enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Oh, pitiful error! To know that people reject it because of love of self!
Obedience to one's selfish inclinations means drawing clouds of pain and sorrow about one's soul, which darken the light of Truth, and shutting oneself out from all real blessedness; for "whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." There is no greater liberty than utmost obedience to the Law of Being.
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.