ing in drowsy indulgence is totally unfit to climb the heavenly
heights.

He whose awakening consciousness has become alive to its lofty
possibilities, who is beginning to shake off the darkness of ignorance in
which the world is enveloped, rises before the stars have ceased their
vigil, and, grappling with the darkness within his soul, strives, by holy
aspiration, to perceive the light of Truth while the unawakened world
dreams on.

"The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night."

No saint, no holy man, no teacher of Truth ever lived who did not rise
early in the morning. Jesus habitually rose early, and climbed the solitary
mountains to engage in holy communion. Buddha always rose an hour before
sunrise and engaged in meditation, and all his disciples were enjoined to
do the same.

If you have to commence your daily duties at a very early hour, and are
thus debarred from giving the early morning to systematic meditation, try
to give an hour at night, and should this, by the length and laboriousness
of your daily task be denied you, you need not despair, for you may turn
your thoughts upward in holy meditation in the intervals of your work, or
in those few idle minutes which you now waste in aimlessness; and should
your work be of that kind which becomes by practice automatic, you may
meditate while engaged upon it. That eminent Christian saint and
philosopher, Jacob Boehme, realized his vast knowledge of divine things
whilst working long hours as a shoemaker. 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,
therefore, commence to meditate upon yourself so as to try and understand
yourself, for, remember, the great object you will have in view will be the
complete removal of all your errors in order that you may realize Truth.
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 without which men are but helpless straws
upon the ocean of life. If you are given to hatred or anger you will
meditate upon gentleness and forgiveness, so as to become acutely al