Wednesday, December 14, 2011

"The Way of Peace" by James Allen

Kindle edition here.

  • "Meditation is the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it, and whatsoever you constantly meditate upon you will not only come to understand, but will grow more and more into its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very being, will become, in fact, your very self. If, therefore, you constantly dwell upon that which is selfish and debasing, you will ultimately become selfish and debased; if you ceaselessly think upon that which is pure and unselfish you will surely become pure and unselfish."
  • "There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks."
  • "He who would secure any worldly advantage must be willing to work vigorously for it, and he would be foolish indeed who, waiting with folded hands, expected it to come to him for the mere asking."
  • "Do not then vainly imagine that you can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an effort."


  • ". . . by patient and uncomplaining effort"
  • "meditation must be distinguished from idle reverie. There is nothing dreamy and unpractical about it. It is a process of searching and uncompromising thought which allows nothing to remain but the simple and naked truth."
  • "meditating you will no longer strive to build yourself up in your prejudices, but, forgetting self, you will remember only that you are seeking the Truth."
  • "Select some portion of the day in which to meditate, and keep that period sacred to your purpose. The best time is the very early morning when the spirit of repose is upon everything. All natural conditions will then be in your favor; the passions, after the long bodily fast of the night, will be subdued, the excitements and worries of the previous day will have died away, and the mind, strong and yet restful, will be receptive to spiritual instruction."
  • "To be spiritually awakened is also to be mentally and physically awakened."
  • "In every life there is time to think, and the busiest, the most laborious is not shut out from aspiration and meditation."
  • "Spiritual meditation and self-discipline are inseparable"
  • "You will begin to question your motives, thoughts, and acts, comparing them with your ideal, and endeavoring to look upon them with a calm and impartial eye. In this manner you will be continually gaining more of that mental and spiritual equilibrium"
  • "The direct outcome of your meditations will be a calm, spiritual strength which will be your stay and resting-place in the struggle of life."
  • "above dead formalities and lifeless ignorance. Thus walking the high way of wisdom, with mind fixed upon the spotless Truth"
  • "He who earnestly meditates first perceives a truth, as it were, afar off, and then realizes it by daily practice. It is only the doer of the Word of Truth that can know of the doctrine of Truth, for though by pure thought the Truth is perceived, it is only actualized by practice."
  • "Said the divine Gautama, the Buddha, "He who gives himself up to vanity, and does not give himself up to meditation, forgetting the real aim of life and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation," and he instructed his disciples in the following "Five Great Meditations: The first meditation is the meditation of love, in which you so adjust your heart that you long for the weal and welfare of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies. The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all beings in distress, vividly representing in your imagination their sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul. The third meditation is the meditation of joy, in which you think of the prosperity of others, and rejoice with their rejoicings. . . The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity, in which you rise above love and hate, tyranny and oppression, wealth and want, and regard your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect tranquility."
  • "let your heart grow and expand with ever-broadening love, until, freed from all hatred, and passion, and condemnation, it embraces the whole universe with thoughtful tenderness"
  • "As the flower opens its petals to receive the morning light, so open your soul more and more to the glorious light of Truth."
  • "Soar upward upon the wings of aspiration; be fearless, and believe in the loftiest possibilities."
  • "Upon the battlefield of the human soul two masters are ever contending for the crown of supremacy"
  • "In every soul the battle is waged, and as a soldier cannot engage at once in two opposing armies, so every heart is enlisted either in the ranks of self or of Truth. There is no half-and-half course"
  • "Truth is the one Reality in the universe . . . Nothing can be added to it, nor taken from it. It does not depend upon any man, but all men depend upon it."
  • "If you are vain, you will color everything with your own vanities."
  • "If proud and opinionative, you will see nothing in the whole universe except the magnitude and importance of your own opinions."
  • "To be not only free from vanity, stubbornness and egotism, but to regard one's own opinions as of no value, this indeed is true humility. He who is immersed in self regards his own opinions as Truth, and the opinions of other men as error. But that humble Truth-lover who has learned to distinguish between opinion and Truth, regards all men with the eye of charity, and does not seek to defend his opinions against theirs, but sacrifices those opinions that he may love the more"
  • "Men engage in heated controversies, and foolishly imagine they are defending the Truth, when in reality they are merely defending their own petty interests and perishable opinions."
  • "Truth is not a formal belief; it is an unselfish, holy, and aspiring heart"
  • "Are you passionate, self-willed, ever seeking to gain your own ends, self-indulgent, and self-centered; or are you gentle, mild, unselfish, quit of every form of self-indulgence, and are ever ready to give up your own?"
  • "The signs by which the Truth-lover is known are unmistakable. Hear the Holy Krishna declare them, in Sir Edwin Arnold's beautiful rendering of the "Bhagavad Gita":-- "Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; And equanimity, and charity Which spieth no man's faults; and tenderness Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, Modest and grave, with manhood nobly mixed, With patience, fortitude and purity; An unrevengeful spirit, never given To rate itself too high--such be the signs"
  • "All those lusts, appetites, desires, opinions, limited conceptions and prejudices to which you have hitherto so tenaciously clung, let them fall from you. Let them no longer hold you in bondage."
  • "Cease to look upon your own religion as superior to all others, and strive humbly to learn the supreme lesson of charity."
  • "by giving up the spirit of vanity; by relinquishing the desire for riches; by abstaining from the lust of self-indulgence; by giving up all hatred, strife, condemnation, and self-seeking, and becoming gentle and pure at heart"
  • "He who is absolutely free from all passion, prejudice, preference, and partiality, sees himself as he is; sees others as they are; sees all things in their proper proportions and right relations. Having nothing to attack, nothing to defend, nothing to conceal, and no interests to guard, he is at peace."
  • "He has realized the profound simplicity of Truth, for this unbiased, tranquil, blessed state of mind and heart is the state of Truth."
  • "When men are intoxicated with the wines of luxury, and pleasure, and vanity, the thirst of life grows and deepens within them, and they delude themselves with dreams of fleshly immortality, but when they come to reap the harvest of their own sowing, and pain and sorrow supervene, then, crushed and humiliated, relinquishing self and all the intoxications of self, they come, with aching hearts to the one immortality, the immortality that destroys all delusions, the spiritual immortality in Truth."
  • "If you suffer disappointment because your cherished plans have been thwarted, or because someone has not come up to your anticipations, it is because you are clinging to self."
  • "If you are wounded on account of what has been done to you or said of you, it is because you are walking in the painful way of self. All suffering is of self. All suffering ends in Truth."
  • "Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul"
  • "The woe of the world is of its own making."
  • "Sorrow purifies and deepens the soul"
  • "Cultivate your heart. Water it continually with unselfish love and deep-felt pity, and strive to shut out from it all thoughts and feelings which are not in accordance with Love. Return good for evil, love for hatred, gentleness for ill-treatment, and remain silent when attacked."
  • "The world is filled with men and women seeking pleasure, excitement, novelty; seeking ever to be moved to laughter or tears; not seeking strength, stability, and power; but courting weakness, and eagerly engaged in dispersing what power they have."
  • "Men and women of real power and influence are few, because few are prepared to make the sacrifice necessary to the acquirement of power, and fewer still are ready to patiently build up character."
  • "To be swayed by your fluctuating thoughts and impulses is to be weak and powerless; to rightly control and direct those forces is to be strong and powerful."
  • "men can only grow in power by awakening themselves to higher and ever higher states of intelligence and consciousness"
  • "The difference between a man of weakness and one of power lies not in the strength of the personal will (for the stubborn man is usually weak and foolish), but in that focus of consciousness which represents their states of knowledge."
  • "The pleasure-seekers, the lovers of excitement, the hunters after novelty, and the victims of impulse and hysterical emotion lack that knowledge of principles which gives balance, stability, and influence."
  • "A man commences to develop power when, checking his impulses and selfish inclinations, he falls back upon the higher and calmer consciousness within him, and begins to steady himself upon a principle."
  • "He ceases to be "passion's slave," and becomes a master-builder in the Temple of Destiny."
  • "he may protect himself against his enemies, being too self-centered to perceive that he is his own enemy"
  • "All effort that is grounded upon self, perishes; only that work endures that is built upon an indestructible principle."
  • "The man that stands upon a principle is the same calm, dauntless, self-possessed man under all circumstances."
  • "Dispassion argues superior self-control"
  • "sublime patience is the very hall-mark of divine knowledge"
  • "to retain an unbroken calm amid all the duties and distractions of life, marks off the man of power"
  • "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
  • "To grow in self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a principle."
  • "Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience"
  • "There will be those who will tell you that you are foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry . . . pursue your course bravely. Your conscience is at least your own, and to follow it is to be a man; to follow the conscience of another is to be a slave"
  • "Search for a rock, a principle, and having found it cling to it; get it under your feet and stand erect upon it, until at last, immovably fixed upon it, you succeed in defying the fury of the waves and storms of selfishness."
  • "It is said that Michael Angelo saw in every rough block of stone a thing of beauty awaiting the master-hand to bring it into reality."
  • "Hidden deep in every human heart, though frequently covered up with a mass of hard and almost impenetrable accretions, is the spirit of Divine Love, whose holy and spotless essence is undying and eternal. It is the Truth in man; it is that which belongs to the Supreme: that which is real and immortal. All else changes and passes away; this alone is permanent and imperishable; and to realize this Love by ceaseless diligence in the practice of the highest righteousness, to live in it and to become fully conscious in it"
  • "To reach this Love, to understand and experience it, one must work with great persistency and diligence upon his heart and mind, must ever renew his patience and keep strong his faith"
  • "All failures are apparent, not real."
  • "Every slip, every fall, every return to selfishness is a lesson learned, an experience gained, from which a golden grain of wisdom is extracted"
  • "Human loves cling to a particular object to the exclusion of all else, and when that object is removed, great and deep is the resultant suffering to the one who loves. Divine Love embraces the whole universe, and, without clinging to any part, yet contains within itself the whole, and he who comes to it by gradually purifying and broadening his human loves until all the selfish and impure elements are burnt out of them, ceases from suffering."
  • "It is because human loves are narrow and confined and mingled with selfishness that they cause suffering."
  • "No suffering can result from that Love which is so absolutely pure that it seeks nothing for itself."
  • "the evanescent nature of the joys and objects"
  • "Love that seeks no personal gratification or reward, that does not make distinctions, and that leaves behind no heartaches"
  • "Are you saved from your temper, your irritability, your vanity, your personal dislikes, your judgment and condemnation of others?"
  • "He is known for his patience, his purity, his self-control, his deep charity of heart, and his unalterable sweetness."
  • "And so suffering and sorrow continue, and must continue until the world, taught by its self-inflicted pains, discovers the Love that is selfless, the wisdom that is calm and full of peace."
  • "Men are chained to that which causes suffering because they desire to be so, because they love their chains, because they think their little dark prison of self is sweet and beautiful, and they are afraid that if they desert that prison they will lose all that is real and worth having."
  • "The world does not understand the Love that is selfless because it is engrossed in the pursuit of its own pleasures, and cramped within the narrow limits of perishable interests mistaking, in its ignorance, those pleasures and interests for real and abiding things."
  • "state of interior enlightenment"
  • "If, in your heart, you are continually arraigning and condemning others, selfless Love is hidden from you."
  • "calm attitude of mind and sweetness of heart toward all"
  • "unremitting endeavor in self-discipline, and by gaining victory after victory over yourself"
  • "Train your mind in strong, impartial, and gentle thought; train your heart in purity and compassion; train your tongue to silence and to true and stainless speech"
  • "So living, without seeking to convert, you will convince; without arguing, you will teach; not cherishing ambition, the wise will find you out; and without striving to gain men's opinions, you will subdue their hearts."
  • "in spite of his bodily appetites and desires, in the midst of all his clinging to earthly and impermanent things"
  • "immersed in mortality and troubled with unrest"
  • "The mind unenlightened upon the inner laws of being, and upon the nature and destiny of its own life, clings to transient appearances, things which have in them no enduring substantiality, and so clinging, perishes, for the time being, amid the shattered wreckage of its own illusions."
  • "the perishable life of the senses"
  • "When a man's soul is clouded with selfishness in any or every form, he loses the power of spiritual discrimination, and confuses the temporal with the eternal, the perishable with the permanent, mortality with immortality, and error with Truth." 
  • "Where you find unbroken gentleness, enduring patience, sublime lowliness, graciousness of speech, self-control, self-forgetfulness, and deep and abounding sympathy, look there for the highest wisdom, seek the company of such a one"
  • "Believe not him that is impatient, given to anger, boastful, who clings to pleasure and refuses to renounce his selfish gratifications, and who practices not good-will and far-reaching compassion, for such a one hath not wisdom, vain is all his knowledge, and his works and words will perish, for they are grounded on that which passes away."
  • "The world, the body, the personality are mirages upon the desert of time; transitory dreams in the dark night of spiritual slumber"
  • "Men grow weary and gray over the dark problems of life, and finally pass away and leave them unsolved because they cannot see their way out of the darkness of the personality, being too much engrossed in its limitations."
  • "Problems exist only in our own self-created illusions, and they vanish away when self is yielded up. Self and error are synonymous."
  • "The final test of wisdom is this - how does a man live? What spirit does he manifest? How does he act under trial and temptation?"
  • "Whoever fights ceaselessly against his own selfishness, and strives to supplant it with all-embracing love, is a saint"
  • "Only the work that is impersonal can live"
  • "A pure heart is the end of all religion and the beginning of divinity."
  • "In the external universe there is ceaseless turmoil, change, and unrest; at the heart of all things there is undisturbed repose; in this deep silence dwelleth the Eternal."
  • ". . . then conquer yourself. Bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into perfect obedience"
  • "All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are your own, and you can cling to them or you can give them up."
  • "No one else can give up sin for you; you must give it up yourself."
  • "You are what you will to be, what you wish to be, what you prefer to be. You can commence to purify yourself, and by so doing can arrive at peace, or you can refuse to purify yourself, and so remain with suffering."
  • "Step aside, then; come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, renew, and restore you."

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