Get to Work

Work on reducing your likes and dislikes, not only in personal relationships but in everything….Try this with jobs and responsibilities: the nagging little things you have to do but just don’t want to.   It’s a rare spirit that can say, “I loathe this job–so let me at it!” 
— Eknath Easwaran, To Love Is to Know Me:  The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, v. 3

A person works in a stable.  That person has a Breakthrough.  What does he do?  He returns to work in the stable.
—Matthew Fox, Meditations  with Meister Eckhart

Of course he exists. You don’t see the stars in the daytime, but that doesn’t mean the stars don’t exist. There’s butter in milk, but how could anyone guess that by looking at it? To get the butter you must churn the milk in a cool place. To get the vision of God you must practice mental disciplines—you can’t see him just by wishing.
—Sri Ramakrishna, in Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna and His Disciples

Listen to the criticisms of your masters and your classmates and to those you respect. Decide if their criticisms are valid and if they are, implement them. Try to find every single flaw in yourself, and eradicate it.
—Deng Ming-Dao, Scholar Warrior: An Introduction to the Tao in Everyday Life

Since human consciousness contains so much that is egotistic, violent, cruel, all deeply rooted, how can those evil tendencies be countered unless by forces as ruthless and implacable as themselves? To destroy them within the space of a single life-span is a task not for the squeamish but for indomitable giants who have conquered fear and abhorrence.  
—John Blofeld, Mantras: Sacred Words of Power