This page offers you a daily dose of James Allen. Here you’ll find today’s entries from James Allen’s book of meditations for every day in the year and Morning and evening thoughts:
previous day - July 16th 2017 - next day
Vanity leading to excessive luxury in clothing is a vice which should be studiously avoided by virtuous people.
AN obtrusive display in clothing and jewellery bespeaks a vulgar and empty mind. Modest and cultured people are modest and becoming in their dress, and their spare money is wisely used in further enhancing their culture and virtue. Education and progress are of more importance to them than needless, vain apparel ; and literature, art, and science are encouraged thereby. A true refinement is in the mind and behaviour, and a mind adorned with virtue and intelligence cannot add to its attractiveness (though it may detract from it) by an ostentatious display of the body.
Simplicity in dress, as in other things, is the best.
Let a man realize that life in its totality
proceeds from the mind, and lo, the way
of blessedness is opened up to him! For
he will then discover that he possesses the
power to rule his mind and to fashion it
in accordance with his Ideal.
So will he elect to strongly and stead-
fastly walk those pathways of thought and
action which are altogether excellent; to
him life will become beautiful and sacred;
and, sooner or later, he will put to flight
all evil, confusion, and suffering; for it
is impossible for a man to fall short of
liberation, enlightenment, and peace,
who guards with unwearying diligence
the gateway of his heart.
By constantly overcoming self, a man gains
a knowledge of the subtle intricacies of
his mind; and it is this divine knowledge
which enables him to become established
in calmness.
Without self-knowledge there can be no
abiding peace of mind, and those who are
carried away by tempestuous passions,
cannot approach the holy place where
calmness reigns.
The weak man is like one who, having
mounted a fiery steed, allows it to run
away with him, and carry him withersoever
it wills; the strong man is like one who,
having mounted the steed, governs it
with a masterly hand and makes it go in
whatever direction and at whatever speed
he commands.
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