To create from joy, to create from wonder, demands a continual discipline, a great compassion. It demands a severity of mind towards all vanity and posturing of the ego that loves its suffering, and clings to its despairs and depressions and fears; it demands a continual objectivity of spirit, a continual looking out at, and beyond, the world created by the senses, towards a spiritual reality, whose lineaments only emerge slowly, after years of experience and meditation. You do not need to stop working, but you need to strive for a new relationship with your work... With time and sincerity you will discover a way to work that does not harm you spiritually, does not tempt you to vanity, that is the deepest expression of your spirituality.
Developing a deep quality of interest is one of the keys to the whole art of concentration. Our steadiness is nourished by the degree of interest with which we focus our meditation ... Concentration combines full interest with a delicacy of attention. This attention should not be confused with being removed or detached. Awareness does not mean separating ourselves from experience; it means allowing it and sensing it fully ... As we learn to steady the quality of our attention, it is accompanied by a deeper and deeper sense of stillness -- poised, exquisite and subtle.