Daily meditation, Jan 29th: James Allen

All evil is corrective and remedial, and is therefore not permanent.

JANUARY TWENTY - NINTH

BY earnest self-examination strive to realise, and not merely hold as a theory, that evil is a passing phase, a self-created shadow; that all your pains, sorrows, and misfortunes have come to you by a process of undeviating and absolutely perfect law; have come to you because you deserve and require them, and that by first enduring, and then understanding them, you may be made stronger, wiser, nobler. When you have fully entered into this realisation, you will be in a position to mould Your own circumstances, to transmute all evil into good, and to weave, with a master hand, the fabric of your destiny.

Cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience, and begin to learn, with humility and patience, the lessons that are set for your ultimate perfection.

Daily meditation, Jan 28th: James Allen

No pure thought, no unselfish deed, can fall short of its felicitous results, and every such result is a happy consummation.

January Twenty-eighth

IF to-day is cold and gloomy, is that a cause for despair ? Do we not know that there are warm, bright days ahead ? Already the birds are beginning to sing, and the tremulous trill in their little throats is prophetic of the approaching love of a new spring, and of the bounty of a summer that as yet is but a sleeping germ in the womb of this gloomy day, but whose birth is sure, and its full growth certain. No effort is vain. The spring of all your aspirations is near—very near; and the summer of your unselfish deeds will surely come to pass.

Self shall depart, and Truth shall take its place; The Changeless One, the Indivisible, Shall take up His abode in me, and cleanse The White Robe of the Heart Invisible.

Go to your task with love in your heart, and you will go to it light-hearted and cheerful.

Daily meditation, Jan 27th: James Allen

A sweet and happy soul is the ripened fruit of experience and wisdom,.

JANUARY TWENTY - SEVENTH

THERE is an infinite patience in nature which it is profitable to contemplate.

A comet may take a thousand years to complete its orbit; the sea may occupy ten thousand years in wearing away the land; the complete evolution of the human race may occupy millions of years. This should make us ashamed of our hurry, fussiness, discontent, disappointments, and ridiculous self-importance over trifling things of an hour or a day. Patience is conducive to the highest greatness, the most far-reaching usefulness, and the profoundest peace. Without it, life will lose much of its power and influence, and its joy win be largely destroyed.

"So with well-ordered strenuousness Raise thou thy structure of Success."

He who fills with useful pursuits the minutes as they come and go grows old in honour and wisdom, and prosperity abides with him.

Daily meditation, Jan 26th: James Allen

The greatest blessedness comes to him who infuses into his mind the purest and noblest thoughts.

JANUARY TWENTY - SIXTH

WE are becoming wise when we know and realise that happiness abides in certain habits of mind, or mental characteristics, rather than in material possessions, or in certain combinations of circumstances. It is a common delusion to imagine that if one only possessed this or that— a little more money, a little more leisure, this man’s talent, or that man’s opportunities; or if one had better friends, or more favourable surroundings—one would be happy with a perfect felicity. Alas ! Discontent and misery lie in such vain wishes. If happiness is not already found within, it will never be found without. The happiness of a wise mind abides through all vicissitudes.

Your whole life is a series of effects, having their cause in thought—in your own thought.

Happy Chinese New Year of Ox!

Daily meditation, Jan 25th: James Allen

There is no blessedness anywhere until impatience is sacrificed.

JANUARY TWENTY - FIFTH

DESPONDENCY, anxiety, worry, and irritability cannot cure the ills against which they are directed. They only add more misery to the troubles that prompt them. The cultivation of a steadfast and serene spirit cannot be overlooked if life is to yield any measure of usefulness and happiness. The trifles, and even greater troubles, which annoy would soon dissolve and disappear if confronted with a temper that refuses to be ruffled and disturbed. Personal aims, wishes, schemes, and pleasures will meet with checks, rebuffs, and obstacles and it is in learning to meet these reverses in a wise and calm spirit that we discover the true and abiding happiness within our heart.

When impatience and irritability are put away, then is realised and enjoyed the blessedness of a strong, quiet, and peaceful mind.

Daily meditation, Jan 24th: James Allen

Look not outside thee nor behind thee for the light and blessedness of Truth, but look within.

JANUARY TWENTY - FOURTH

WE advance by a scries of efforts. We gather strength, whether mental or physical, by a succession of strivings in given directions. Exertion, oft repeated, leads to power. It is by obeying this law that the athlete trains Himself to accomplish wonderful feats of speed or endurance. When the exertion is along intellectual lines, it leads to unusual talent, or genius; and when in spiritual channels, it leads to wisdom, or transcendent greatness.

We should not mourn when circumstances are driving us to greater efforts and more protracted exertion. Events are only evil to the mind that makes them so. They are good to him that accepts their discipline as salutary.

Thou wilt find Truth within the narrow sphere of thy duty, even in the humble and hidden sacrifices of thine own heart.