When love is the nature of your heart, what else can belong there? All the hurts and regrets and so on are imposed on the heart. They are stashed there, but your heart is not a closet to stuff things in. Your heart is a beautiful thing. It beats a drum of love that sounds around the universe. Hear it.

Whatever does not belong in your heart does not belong there. No matter how justified an emotion less than love may seem to be, it is not justified. There is no call for it.

Your heart is a harbor of love. It is not meant to harbor derelict emotions. There is no end to love, and no end to your heart. Fill your heart with love. With anything else, you sully it.

No matter how willing you may have wanted to be, it has been hard for you to let go of the laden past even when it caused you pain. You say you would gladly let go of the past and its encumbrances if only you knew how. You would if you could. If only it were so easy, you say, for the past keeps creeping up on you. You would snap its door shut, but the past finds its way to you nevertheless. It seeps through the cracks. But the past is not the culprit. It is innocent. It doesn't stay. You keep it.

If you see yourself as a victim of the past, start seeing yourself another way. Envision yourself as a mover of the present.

Perhaps you can swing from the concept of letting go to the concept of keeping close to you that which you want to keep and that which is worth keeping — love, for instance. As you focus on being an instrument of love, by default, you forget to hold on to the chimeras of the past. Perhaps they will drift off without your saying goodbye to them. Perhaps you won't think of them at all. There is no rule that says you have to note that they are gone or to mark them off. You cannot keep track of everything. Be willing not to keep track, and you will be freer from the past.

What is the allure of the past? What is it to hold you in its thrall? When did you give it such power?

The truth is that the past is inevitably gone. The past is over. It cannot stay. Who can keep a gust of wind in his hand? What can bring back yesteryear? The mind fashions memories it would deeply implant in the heart, as if the heart were a storage unit in which to keep remnants. Remnants are just tag ends. What would you keep them for?

Make way for love. You have made way for everything else.

Be a courtier of love. Get closer to the truth of you. Why would anyone choose impatience over love? What good does impatience do you or anyone? What makes fear seem more powerful than love? What in God's creation can equal love? And why should anything else crowd it?

You are an embodiment of love. This is truth. Return then to truth. You are many things in the relative world. You are mother, father, son, daughter, employer, employee, seller, shopper, cook, eater, bus boy etc. Embroider in your heart now that you are an embodiment of love. Whatever life calls on you to do now, let love be present. Love is present. Acknowledge it.

Pick up a piece of paper off the floor with love.

Practice love.