How hungry is the heart that is out of practice of loving. It's not the heart's fault that it has been kept sheltered. The heart has been stepped on, even isolated by the supervisory mind. The mind puts the heart in isolation. The mind may think it is doing a good thing for the person it occupies, raising its owner above others, keeping its owner aloof, keeping its owner in some kind of frozen eliteness, in a place where common everyday love is not good enough to express itself.

And so the mind insists that the person's heart must wait until there is the perfection that the mind thinks there must be, an object of perfection before the mind will dare allow the heart's release. And, so, the bedraggled heart is pulled back and has to wait for permission before it may start evoking itself. The rein on the heart is too short, too tight, too restricting.

The person who owns the heart, according to the snobbish mind, has to be exclusive, has to regard himself as too good to love commoners. Beloved, without the engagement of the heart, what does life amount to? To the mind, orderliness and organization come before love. The mind is proud of itself and so inhabits the owner of the heart and the mind makes itself king of the castle, a castle where no one is fit to enter. The heart lives in a lonely castle and wonders when it can open itself to the world.

The mind doesn't see far enough. The mind makes judgments, none of them in the name of love. The mind says that no one has shown up worthy of love from the person the mind ostensibly takes care of. And so the mind keeps the person on a shelf out of sight where expensive objects are kept to gather dust.

I speak to the mind:

"Mind, get out of the way. You may have been well-intentioned, yet you have it all wrong. Your job is not to build a moat around the heart you have sworn to protect. You are to open the floodgates of the heart, to honor it and to allow the heart to surrender itself to love.

"Mind, you may have thought no one is good enough for the heart you illegally commandeered. In smugness, you made the heart an old maid. You made the heart wait for love when the heart has love to give. The heart can start anywhere. You are not supposed to restrict the heart. The heart is not foolhardy as you have thought. The heart has its wisdom. If the heart must wait for only the choicest food, according to your opinion, the heart will go hungry.

"Mind, consider that the heart is to practice love. The heart is to lend itself to the practice of love. The practice is love itself. How tense is the heart that is kept from loving. Mind, the heart is not meant to be under your supervision. The heart goes beyond your short-ranged thinking.

"The heart does not have to take love. That is an idea that you have, mind. The heart you took over is to give love. Mind, you can't take over the heart because you are not the heart. You cannot understand the heart. Mind, you analyze very well. You scrutinize very well, and you thwart the heart you are meant to uphold. You like to think you are looking out for the heart's best interest, yet you have put a stranglehold on the heart you deign to represent.

"You think the heart is mindless, yet it is you who is heartless.

"You treat the heart like a pony tied up in a tiny corral. Let the pony of love stretch its legs. You keep feeding it dried hay when there is plenty of green grass around. Let the heart free to be what a heart is. Let the heart leap. Let the heart take chances. You have held the heart back. Held back, how can the heart grow? Give the beleaguered heart a chance to find itself and to love life and everyone in it. Mind, you simply don't know enough.

"Let's face it, mind, the heart must have its freedom. There is nothing to compensate for love. Certainly not your advice. Let hearts be free."