Friday, May 15, 2009

Daily meditation, May 15th: James Allen

Love is not complete until it is lived by man.

MAY FIFTEENTH

EVERY precept of Jesus demands the unconditional sacrifice of some selfish, personal element, before it can be carried out. Man cannot know the Real whilst he clings to the unreal; he cannot do the work of Truth whilst he clings to error. Whilst a man cherishes lust, hatred, pride, vanity, sellindulgence, covetousness, he can do nothing, for the works of all these sinful elements are unreal and perishable. Only when he takes refuge in the Spirit of Love within, and becomes patient, gentle, pure, pitiful, and forgiving, does He the works of Righteousness, and bears the fruits of Life. The vine is not a vine without its branches, and even then it is not complete until those branches bear fruit.

Daily practising love towards all in heart and mmd and deed, harbouring no injurious or impure thoughts, he discovers the imperishable Principles of his being.

Man’s only refuge from sin is sinless Love.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Daily meditation, May 14th: James Allen

The Christ is the Spirit of Love.

MAY FOURTEENTH

WHEN Jesus said, " Without Me ye can I do nothing," He spoke not of His perishable form, but of the Universal Spirit of Love, of which His conduct was a perfect manifestation; and this utterance of His is the statement of a simple truth; for the works of men are vain and worthless when they are done for personal ends, and he himself remains a perishable being, immersed in darkness and fearing death, so long as he lives in his personal gratifications. The animal in man can never respond to and know the divine; only the divine can respond to the divine. The spirit of hatred in man can never vibrate in unison with the Spirit of Love; Love only can apprehend Love, and become linked with it. Man is divine; man is of the substance of Love; this he may realise if he will relinquish the impure, personal elements which he has hitherto been blindly following, and will fly to the impersonal Realities of the Christ Spirit.

In this Principle of Love, all knowledge, Intelligence, and Wisdom are contained.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Daily meditation, May 13th: James Allen

They are the doers of the Father’s will who shape their conduct to the Divine precepts.

MAY THIRTEENTH

TO us and to all there is no sufficiency, no blessedness, no peace to be derived from the goodness of another, not even the goodness of God; not until the goodness is done by us, not until it is, by constant effort, incorporated into our being, can we know and possess its blessedness and peace. Therefore, thou who adorest Jesus for His divine qualities, practise those qualities thyself, and thou too shalt be divine.

The teaching of Jesus brings men back to the simple truth that righteousness, or right-doing, is entirely a matter of individual conduct, and not a mystical something apart from a man’s thoughts and actions, and that each must be righteous for himself; each must be a doer of the word, and it is a man’s own doing that brings him peace and gladness of heart, not the doing of another.

It is only the doer of forgiveness who tastes the sweets of forgiveness.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Daily meditation, May 12th: James Allen

The Gospel of Jesus is a Gospel of living and doing.

MAY TWELFTH

THAT Jesus was meek, and lowly, and loving, and compassionate, and pure is very beautiful, but it is not sufficient; it is necessary that you also should be meek, and lowly, and loving, and compassionate, and pure. That Jesus subordinated His own will to the will of the Father, it is inspiring to know, but it is not sufficient; it is necessary that you, too, should likewise subordinate your will to that of the overruling Good. The grace and beauty and goodness that were in Jesus can be of no value to you, cannot be understood by you, unless they are also in you, and they can never be in you until you practice them, for, apart from doing, the qualities which constitute Goodness do not, as far as you are concerned, exist.

Pure Goodness is religion, and outside it there is no religion.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Daily meditation, May 11th: James Allen

He who would find how good at heart men are, let hint throw away all his ideas and suspicions about the " evil " in others, and find and practise the good within himself.

MAY ELEVENTH

MAN has within him the divine power by which he can rise to the highest heights of spiritual achievement; by which he can shake off sin and shame and sorrow, and do the will of the Father, the Supreme Good; by which he can conquer all the powers of darkness within, and stand radiant and free; by which he can subdue the world, and scale the lofty pinnacles of God. This can man, by choice, by resolve, and by his divine strength, accomplish; but he can only accomplish it in and by obedience; he must choose meekness and lowliness of heart; he must abandon strife for peace; passion for purity; hatred for love; self-seeking for self-sacrifice, and must overcome evil with good.

This is the holy way of Truth; this is the safe and abiding salvation; this is the yoke and burden of the Christ.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Daily meditation, May 10th: James Allen

Humanity is essentially divine.

MAY TENTH

SO long has man dwelt in the habitations of sin that he has at last come to regard himself as native to it, and as being cut off from the Divine Source, which he believes to be outside and away from him. Man is primarily a spiritual being, and as such, is of the nature and substance of the Eternal Spirit, the Unchangeable Reality, which men call God. Goodness, not sin, is His rightful condition; perfection, not imperfection, is his heritage, and this a man may enter into and realise now if he will grant the condition, which is the denial or abandonment of self, that is, of his feverish desires, his proud will, his egotism and self-seeking—all that which St. Paul calls the " natural man."

Jesus, in His divine goodness, knew the human heart, and He knew that it was good.

Daily meditation, May 9th: James Allen

Personal antipathies, however natural they may be to the animal man, can have no place in the divine life.

MAY NINTH

WHILST a man is engaged in resisting evil, he is not only not practising the good, he is actually involved in the like passion and prejudice which he condemns in another; and as a direct result of his attitude of mind, he himself is resisted by others as evil. Resist a man, a party, a religion, a government, as evil, and you yourself will be resisted as evil. He who considers it as a great evil that he should be persecuted and condemned, let him cease to persecute and condemn. Let him turn away from all that he has hitherto regarded as evil, and begin to look for the good. So deep and farreaching is this precept that the practice of it will fake a man far up the heights of spiritual knowledge and attainment.

He who will keep the precepts of Jesus will conquer himself, and will become divinely illuminated.