What does selfish ambition mean?

You must realise that time to work here is short, and so you cannot afford any, but fine thoughts and happy days. 

When any soul on this plane can sink his personal ambition or vanity in love for the rest of the race, he then becomes a candidate for the class of higher service, and his personal path is made as easy and free as possible. 

When one can be willing to lose his life for others, he then saves it for himself. 

It is like learning to swim. When you relax and stop struggling, you float. All the big things follow the same law. The wild desire for self-preservation kills because the mind is not relaxed, nor receptive, and the flow of knowledge is cut off. 

No one generates knowledge by himself. 

He is just a medium for the expression of existing truth. The less he thinks he is or knows, the more he can express. 

Your mind can obstruct or discolour the light, but it does not create it. It is merely a transmitter. You see the point? 

There is a succession of graduated planes―or evolutionary steps over in the world of spirits, each governed or mastered by the most advanced soul on that plane who is responsible for the work in that division. Above him are others ever higher, ever more complex or exalted. The great general plan is doubtless known only to the Ultimate Mind―or Creator, each lower master working out some idea or detail, which in its turn fits in with some other part. 

The same plans descend to us. 

No one on earth knows the entire plan of the earth's solution. He does his small part and should be proud to do it well for the beauty of the ultimate product. 

Spirits deal only with the transient details. 

They waste little time speculating on failures. They are too busy. They revel in the splendid swing of life, as it is in the making, and gladly do their part. 

The greater their capacity and intelligence, the more they see to do and be. 

The one who can does freely and without stint. There is neither the desire, nor the idea of holding back. They throw all they have and are into the stream, and find their highest joy in giving up self.