Sometimes you think you are incapable of great love. I know differently. I know what you are capable of. You do not.
If all the accumulation of your mind could be swept away, you would sing out your great love from a mountain top. You would dance your love across the sky. You would bounce your love off everything everywhere.
Babies are pure love. And you were a baby. As you grew, the world started to impinge and bear down on the love your whole being was full of. You were told how to be. Something else but love you were supposed to attain. Love repressed was handed down from generation to generation. Love became a second-class citizen. Joy was battened down. You were taught to be unhappy, as if it were good for you.
You were taught so many things. What to do, how to do it, what not to do. Instruction superceded love and joy. Instruction became the main course. Love became extracurricular, allowed after prescribed obligations, but until then, beside the point, shunted off somewhere into a corner like a poor relative. All of this was done in the name of love. Your love was side-swiped.
Compliance became more important than anything. Appearance mattered above all. What was in your heart was squired away, put in a closet, on a back shelf, stuffed with mothballs.
When you went to school, you were supposed to learn things that the world said you must. Fun became outlawed. It was the exception. The world said one thing and taught another. The world said many things, and pretended itself that they were true and important. You were told to be quiet, and you were given noise. You were told to stay still, but activity was rewarded. Original thinking was not. Love was not. Joy was not.
You were regulated. You were cut off from your heart. Your heart was bottled up. Free expression was denied. You were denied. And so you learned to deny yourself.
Despite all this, you are capable of great love, this love that has been boxed in your heart all this while. Now it is safe to take it out, all this stored-up love in your heart. You can take it out today.
Picture your heart being taken out of moth balls. Like a precious jewel, your heart is laid gently on a royal cushion, and it is carried out into the presence of the King. The King blesses your heart, and returns it to you for the embodiment of the world. It is your heart that has been missing all these years. Now it is taken out, dusted off, and taken out into the sunshine of life. Your heart gains strength in the fresh air and sunshine. How beautiful is your heart in the light of day! Yes, your heart was meant to be seen. Your heart was even meant to glow in the dark.
Take off past learning. This means to put first things first.
Declare yourself love. Declare it to your self. Say after Me: "I am all heart. I love my heart. I love it with all my might. I am no longer ashamed of my heart. I honor it. I shall go where it takes me, for it knows the way. My mind is heartless and does not know. But my heart of love does. My heart of love takes me right to You, God. And where are You, God? You are right in the center of my heart. You are my heart's call to myself. The Kingdom of Heaven is located in a silent place in the center of my heart, and that is how I realize myself. I endow myself with the love in my heart and recognize that it is Yours and, therefore, mine."