What is the use of only knowing? I say to thee, Act and be, for therefore God sent thee into this human body.

Sri Aurobindo

(Ref: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 17, P: 123)

Of course the idea of bigness and smallness is quite foreign to the spiritual truth.... Spiritually there is nothing big or small. Such ideas are like those of the literary people who think writing a poem is a high work and making shoes or cooking the dinner is a small and low one. But all is equal in the eyes of the Spirit - and it is only the spirit within with which it is done that matters. It is the same with a particular kind of work, there is nothing big or small.

Sri Aurobindo

(Ref: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 23, P: 679)

Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity are prepared by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not sit down for meditation or follow any particular practice of Yoga. It is not necessary to tell you how to meditate; whatever is needful will come of itself, if in your work and at all times you are sincere and keep yourself open to the Mother.

Sri Aurobindo

(Ref: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 25, P: 199)

The greater the difficulties that rise in the work the more one can profit by them in deepening the equality, if one takes it in the right spirit. You must also keep yourself open to receive the help towards that, for the help will always be coming from the Mother for the change of the nature.

Sri Aurobindo

(Ref: Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 25, P: 213)

To work for the Divine is to pray with the body.

The Mother

(Ref: Mother's Collected Works, Vol. 14, P: 321)

If you don't do anything, you cannot have any experience. The whole life is a field of experience. Each movement you make, each thought you have, each work you do, can be an experience, and must be an experience; and naturally work in particular is a field of experience where one must apply all the progress which one endeavours to make inwardly.

If you remain in meditation or contemplation without working, well, you don't know if you have progressed or not. You may live in an illusion, the illusion of your progress; while if you begin to work, all the circumstances of your work, the contact with others, the material occupation, all this is a field of experience in order that you may become aware not only of the progress made but of all the progress that remains to be made....

The Mother

(Ref: Mother's Collected Works, Vol. 7, P: 291)

I suppose it is different for each one. So each one must find those activities which increase his aspiration, his consciousness, his deeper knowledge of things, and those which, on the contrary, mechanise him and bring him back more thoroughly into a purely material relation with things.

It is difficult to make a general rule.

Truly speaking, it depends more on the way of doing a thing than on the thing itself.

You take up some work which is quite material, like cleaning the floor or dusting a room; well, it seems to me that this work can lead to a very deep consciousness if it is done with a certain feeling for perfection and progress; while other work considered of a higher kind as, for example, studies or literary and artistic work, if done with the idea of seeking fame or for the satisfaction of one's vanity or for some material gain, will not help you to progress. So this is already a kind of classification which depends more on the inner attitude than on the outer fact. But this classification can be applied to everything.

The Mother

(Ref: Mother's Collected Works, Vol. 8, P: 160-161)