To Do Something Well

"If you want to do something well, what ever it may be.... you must become what you are doing and not remain a small person looking at himself doing it... Take a very amusing instance: you want to fill a bottle from another bottle; you concentrate (you may try it as a discipline); well, as long as you are the bottle to be filled, the bottle from which one pours, and the movement of pouring, as long as you are only this, all goes well. But if unfortunately you think at a given moment: "Ah! it is getting on well, I am managing well,' the next minute it spills over! That is why work is a good means of discipline, for if you want to do the work properly, you must become the work instead of being someone who works. For if truly you want to do the work, well, this is the only way of doing it." -- Mother, originally Mirra Alfassa who stayed with Sri Aurobindo