Please call me by my true names
so I can hear all my cries and
my laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
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.