Question: How can we remember that even the most menial action is a form of art?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to remember at each moment that you are not the doer you are only the instrument. While you are in the kitchen touching the stove, you have to feel that it is not you who is touching the stove; it is somebody within you who is touching the stove. Always you have to identify yourself with some inner reality, some higher reality, the thing that is really divine in you. Right now when you think of yourself, you immediately think of all your imperfections. But when you think of yourself, you have to think that somebody divine is operating in and through you, and that you are just an instrument. If you can feel this, then automatically the realisation of that somebody within you becomes yours. When you think of yourself as the representative or conscious channel of somebody who is all Wisdom and all Light, and that He is acting in and through you, then immediately you will see that everything you do and touch is leading you to your destined goal.

Otherwise, if you touch a material object which you consider undivine, and if you as an individual think of yourself as undivine, then there are two undivine, sick soldiers together. You have to feel that something within you is really strong, divine and beautiful, and that that very thing is utilising you to fulfil itself. If you become an expression or instrument of the divine within you, then everything that you touch or do will be a new discovery for you; everything will have new life for you at every moment. Your actions will not seem menial; they will not seem monotonous or mechanical. No, no, no! Each time you touch something you will give life to it and it will give new life to you. New inspiration, new life will enter into and flow out of whatever you touch. At that time you will be singing the song of ever-expanding life and ever-transcending life.