The power of meditation.

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":"

1. 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. 
2. "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. 
3. "The third meditation is the meditation of joy, in which you think of the prosperity of others, and rejoice with their rejoicings. 
4. "The fourth meditation is the meditation of impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin and diseases. How trivial often the pleasure of the moment, and how fatal its consequences. 
5. "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 tranquillity."

By engaging in these meditations the disciples of the Buddha arrived at a knowledge of the Truth. But whether you engage in these particular meditations or not matters little so long as your object is Truth, so long as you hunger and thirst for that righteousness which is a holy heart and a blameless life. In your meditations, therefore, 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. Believe that a life of absolute meekness is possible; believe that a life of stainless purity is possible; believe that a life of perfect holiness is possible; believe that the realization of the highest truth is possible. He who so believes, climbs rapidly the heavenly hills, whilst the unbelievers continue to grope darkly and painfully in the fogbound valleys.

"There is self and there is Truth; where self is, Truth is not, where Truth is, self is not." 

Thus spake Buddha, the teacher of Truth, and Jesus, the manifested Christ, declared that 

"No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

Every prophet, sage, and savior became such by the power of meditation.

Buddha meditated upon the Truth until he could say, "I am the Truth."

Jesus brooded upon the Divine immanence until at last he could declare, "I and my Father are One."

From poverty to power

or

the realization of prosperity and peace

James Allen

[1906]

"I am the way."

"I AM", the way.

"I AM".