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:
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Passion is not power ; it is the abuse of power, the dispersion of power.
WHEN that young man, whom I knew, passing through continual reverses and misfortunes, was mocked by his friends and told to desist from further effort, and he replied, " The time is not far distant when you will marvel at my good fortune and success," he showed that he was possessed of that silent and irresistible power which has taken him over innumerable difficulties, and crowned his life with success.
If you have not this power, you may acquire it by practice, and the beginning of power is likewise the beginning of wisdom. You must commence by overcoming those purposeless trivialities to which you have hitherto been a willing victim. Boisterous and uncontrolled laughter, slander and idle talk, and joking merely to raise a laugh—all these things must be put on one side as so much waste of valuable energy.
Be of single aim ; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
The gospel of Jesus is a gospel of living and
doing. If it were not this it would not voice
the Eternal Truth. Its Temple is Purified
Conduct, the entrance-door to which is
Self-surrender. It invites men to shake off
sin, and promises, as a result, joy and
blessedness and perfect peace.
The Kingdom of Heaven is perfect
trust, perfect knowledge, perfect peace. . . .
No sin can enter therein, no self-born
Thought or deed can pass its golden gates;
no impure desire can defile its radiant
robes. . . . All may enter it who will, but
all must pay the price-the unconditional
abandonment of self.
I say this-and know it to be truth-that
circumstances can only affect you in so far
as you allow them to do so. You are swayed
by circumstances because you have not a
right understanding of the nature, use, and
power of thought. You believe (and upon
this little word belief hang all our joys and
sorrows) that outward things have the
power to make or mar your life; by so
doing you submit to those outward things,
confess that you are their slave, and they
your unconditional master. By so doing
you invest them with a power which they
do not of themselves possess, and you
succumb, in reality not to the circumstances,
but to the gloom or gladness, the
fear or hope, the strength of weakness,
which your thought-sphere has thrown
around them.
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