Do the work. Do not become it.

A workplace counts hours, output, and reputation. Those counts pay for food and rent. Treat them as real. Do the work well. Then notice the extra move the mind makes: it offers the job as your name.

In the reading

So when I say that without knowing yourself all is in vain, I do not mean that you should do nothing in the world. No. Work. Love. Remain in the family. Earn. Dream. Travel. Build. But while doing all this, do not forget the center within you.

The problem is not the world. The problem is forgetfulness. Remain in the marketplace, but do not let the marketplace settle within you. Keep wealth, but do not let wealth become the price of your existence. Keep relationships, but do not make a relationship the identity of your soul. Attain success, but do not let success decide who you are.

Because if your identity rests on achievements, failure will break you. If your identity rests on other people's opinions, criticism will burn you. If your identity rests on the body, age will frighten you. If your identity rests on property, loss will empty you. But if your identity is in that witness who sees all of these, then changes will keep coming in life, and a center within you can remain unmoved.

This is also why the fear of death slowly begins to be understood. The body will change; one day it will end. Relationships will change. Property will be left. The name will be left. But one who has learned, all his life, the art of looking within can see even death as an event of life. I am not saying: imagine something about death. I am saying: see, from now, that in every moment something or other is ending. The breath comes and goes. The day comes and turns into night. Childhood went; youth came; youth too will go. One thought came; another went. One emotion rose and ended. And still you say, I am the same.

The whole reading