As I read the prayer I began to sense something amazing. I could hear music, as if someone were playing an instrument in the next room. Then I realized that I wasn't hearing the music with my ears, but with my heart. It was prayer. The prayer was singing itself to me. I picked up my guitar and played along. The music was beautiful, and it continued until I finished the entire song . . . When it was over I realized I had just received an amazing gift. I also knew that one is never given a gift of this magnitude unless one is meant to share it.
~ from THE SECRET OF THE BELOVED DISCIPLE by James Twyman
Work is not your enemy but your friend. How you work, not what you do, determines the course of your life. You may work grudgingly or you may work gratefully; you may work as a human or you may work as a robot. There is no work so rude that you may not exalt in it; no work so demeaning that you cannot breathe soul into it; no work so dull that you may not enliven it. Never be tempted to diminish your efforts; always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
~ from THE GREATEST SUCCESS IN THE WORLD by Og Mandino
How terribly the rice suffers under the pestle! But it emerges polished, as white as cotton. The same process tempers the human spirit: Hard trials shape us into polished diamonds.
~ from A PRISON DIARY by Ho Chi Minh in AFTER SORROW by Lady Borton
When you love to do something, that means you have a gift for it. And when you are gifted at something, you have to do it. You don't have to quit your job and mortgage your house, but you do have to give your gift a careful look. If you don't pay attention to what you love, you could overlook your greatest gifts!
The earth needs people who can say, "Yes there is more." Not just more in the way of knowledge or inventions or wisdom or revelations, but more compassion, more gentleness and sweetness, more caring, more love, more valuing of one another. That is your mission, and it is of the highest, for it is nothing other that the mission of manifesting the spirit of the Beloved in your life.
To have a firm persuasion in our work -- to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time — is one of the great triumphs of human existence... To have a firm persuasion, to set out boldly in our work, is to make a pilgrimage of our labors, to understand that the consummation of work lies not only in what we have done, but who we have become while accomplishing the task... Work, at its best, is one of the great human gateways to the eternal and the timeless.
Spiritual self-esteem is gained from knowing that our work is a contribution and a blessing. Then we perform for the love of God with no thought of personal recognition... When our motivatlon for work is valid, the work will be spontaneous and creative.
