There is great love within you that has been repressed. When you hold your fist tight, what gift can your hand give or receive? A fist is a closed hand. And your heart became a fist. Somewhere along the way, your heart closed unto itself rather than opening like the rose of its nature.

You cannot make a rose bloom. You cannot take the petals and force them open. But you can encourage the rose to unfurl and to reveal itself. You can let go of your resistance to the rose's blooming.

Your heart is a rose afraid to stand up straight and to open itself to the sun and the rain.

Your heart has been hidden. Even those of you with so-called big hearts know the truth of your heart that you have denied.

An open heart is a receptor of love as well as a sender. It is not a prover. Remember the reception of love. Love from an open heart doesn't just dash out every which way. Your open heart is the station of love. It beams light and it receives light. How much depends on its openness.

But when a rose blooms, it does not grab onto everything within its reach. It emanates. A rose blooming is simply what it is for all to see. A rose blooms but not for an audience. It has an audience, but that is not the reason for its audition. From where does the will of the rose to bloom come?

The rose of your heart has curled into itself. It has backed away from an audience. It wants to be a secret heart, but it keeps secrets from itself.

Your mind has told the heart to close up, but it is the heart that has to tell the mind to open.

A heart closes because it has listened to the warnings of the intellect.

Your heart is guarded because the intellect tells it to fear damage.

But any damage comes from wariness.

An open heart cannot be hurt. When the heart is truly open, it is a neutral channel, and there is flow. There is only flow. In the closed heart, something can get stuck. A truly open heart is at no risk because of its openness. Openness is safe.

The intellect, however, wants to sink its teeth into the heart. It wants to keep some things out and keep other things in.

But a heart is not a censor. The mind is a censor. The mind is a gate. It is a warden. It is an issuer of passes or a withholder of passages. But the heart of itself is a passage.

The mind weighs the content of the heart. It measures. It allows or disallows. The mind is a clamp on your heart. It gives orders: "Stop! Go! Watch out! Don't get wounded! Look, you're wounded!"

The heart is innocent, but the mind is suspicious.

The mind is meant to reflect the heart. The heart is not to reflect the watchful mind. The mind is to follow the heart, not the other way round. But you have followed the gossip of your intellect, much of which was fed to your intellect by others' words.

At this point, you may say: "Okay, God, you're right. But what do I do now? How do I change the state of affairs? I'm willing, but how do I send the sentries away, and let the rose of my heart bloom?"

And I say to you: "The willingness is enough. That is the signal for the guards to disband. Your willingness comes from your listening to Me. Truly it is not your intellect that listens to Me. It is your heart. You are learning an accepting heart as you let My love, in words or not in words, seep into you. My love calms your intellect and assuages your heart. My love helps your heart to get its signals straight. My love helps the mind to rescind its interference and go back to its own realm."

You have misunderstood the meaning of an open heart. You thought it was foolish. But an open heart is made of truth. And only truth can enter.

An open heart is like a babe's mouth that knows its own taste and spits out what is not to its taste. This is not judgment.

The taste-buds of an open heart accept love, give love, and do not separate the love within a heart into compartments. By its very neutrality, an open heart does not expect nor avert. Truth comes in and stays, and falsehood doesn't.

The true love you seek is within your own heart, and I put it there. An open heart is its own true love.

Open your heart to Me so that I may swim there. Do you not want Me in your heart? Do you not want to be pulled to Heaven? Let Me in. Uncramp your heart, and open it wide to Me.