| The path of the heart is not a spiritual technique or | | | | There is no one in the world who is less in need of |
| way, it is life itself leading each of us to a greater | | | | love, only those who seem to be. There is no one |
| understanding and experience of what love is and | | | | whose inner being can truly be satisfied by the outer |
| what it is not. It is the passage of time and the | | | | trappings of a life of great power, success, wealth, and |
| movement through space that weaves itself into a | | | | influence. For inside such a person there are |
| deepening of wisdom, not just for the learned or the | | | | perceptions that come only in moments of aloneness - |
| spiritually inclined, but for the many - for those who are | | | | perceptions that convey to the inner understanding |
| just 'living their lives' as well as for those who are on a | | | | what has been lost in order to gain what may have |
| conscious spiritual path. In every way, all of the time, | | | | ultimately been less valuable. |
| we are learning about love, sometimes through its | | | | The same is true for those who are angry, disillusioned |
| presence in our lives and sometimes through its | | | | or bitter - for those who seem to have given up on |
| absence. | | | | intimacy and who remain either aloof, or critical, or |
| Life's teachings about love come in many packages. | | | | embattled with others, especially those that are close |
| They come in the laughter of children, in the devotion | | | | to them. There is no angry person who deep within |
| to friends, in the commitment to something that the | | | | themselves does not have a heart that beats to the |
| heart cares about passionately, in the desire for | | | | same rhythm as all others - a rhythm implanted by the |
| goodness, in the wish to help others, in the longing to | | | | Creator of hearts that has both a physical component |
| have one's heart be set free from the pain it carries, in | | | | and an emotional and spiritual component - one that |
| the gentleness of a loved one's arms, in the quiet | | | | leads part of the self to continue searching for the |
| embrace of family, in the reassurance of being at | | | | experience of love, even if another part rejects it. That |
| home. These are the ordinary experiences of life that | | | | is why those who are criminals of the worst kind can |
| are pivotal in our learning about love and that are | | | | still love in their own way. It is because their hearts are |
| profound in their teachings. When they are present, we | | | | divided and in a certain, sometimes large portion have |
| often take them for granted. Yet, when they are | | | | become separated from their humanity, while in |
| absent, they cause a pain and an emptiness in the | | | | another part, they cling to the small expression of love |
| heart that travels with us wherever we go. | | | | they remain capable of. |
| It is possible to ignore the messages that life would | | | | If we are open to life's teachings, we will travel the |
| have us learn about the path of the heart, for we are | | | | path of the heart without difficulty and without |
| free to choose what we wish to pay attention to and | | | | confusion, for it will lead us from love to greater love |
| what we wish to ignore. Yet, inevitably, if we turn | | | | both in terms of our understanding and in terms of our |
| away from love's presence too often, the pain in our | | | | experience. In the end, this same path will lead us to |
| heart will begin to convey a message of its own and | | | | understand and to experience the nature of God's |
| will either become a physical pain in the body, requiring | | | | love, and to see it everywhere within its multiple forms |
| a turning toward it in order to heal ourselves, or it will | | | | and expressions upon the earth. In this way, we will |
| become an emptiness in our soul that will increasingly | | | | learn to live a sacred life, one that is built on love and |
| communicate a loneliness and longing for a deepening | | | | that celebrates love within the totality of life. |
| of what we have previously rejected. | | | | |