‘Get into the habit of seeing the whole of your daily life, with all the things that you are obliged to do, the events that occur and the beings with whom you have to live or whom you meet in your work as a raw material, a matter that you have to transform. Don’t be passive. Don’t be content to accept whatever comes and submit to events: always add an element to that raw material that will animate, vivify and spiritualize it. This is what the spiritual life really is: the ability to introduce into every activity a yeast capable of catapulting it on to a higher plane. You will ask, “What about meditation and prayer? Where do they come into it?” That is just the point: it is by meditation and prayer that you pick up that subtler, purer element that enables you to give a new dimension to all your acts.’