The golden heart shows its color and its beauty; it is precious and at the same time it is soft.
The silver heart shows itself inferior compared to the golden heart; yet it is of silver that the current coins are made, so it is useful.
There is the heart of copper of which pennies are made, and pennies are useful in everyday life; one has to use them more than gold and silver. Copper is hard and strong; it needs many hammerings to bend and shape it, to make something out of it.
And then there is the iron heart which must be put into the fire before one can do anything with it. When in the glowing fire the iron has become hot then one can make something out of it. But how long does the heat of the fire last with it? A very short time! The blacksmith must be always ready; as soon as the fire begins to glow he must make something of it, for if he lets the moment go the iron will turn cold.
Besides these different aspects there is a heart of rock, and there is a heart of wax. The heart of rock must be broken, it must be cut in order to make something out of it; nothing reaches it, cold or heat, sun or water have little effect upon it.
The heart of wax melts as soon as it is heated. You can shape it without breaking it; it is soft, you can turn it any way you like.
There is also the heart of paper you make a kite with. It flies and goes up; if the wind is in the north it goes to the north, if the wind is in the south it goes to the south. You can control it as long as the wind does not blow it out of your hands and as long as the wind is strong enough to hold it in the sky. But when there is no more wind it will drop down, and so you will try it again-like a kite.

Are these sufficient examples for the heart of man? There are numberless hearts, each different in quality, and once we begin to look at them and to distinguish their peculiarities and qualities we begin to see a living phenomenon, a miracle, every moment of our life. Is there anything we can compare the heart with?

It is something that dies and then lives again, something that is torn and can be mended again, something that can be broken and be made whole again, something that can rise and something that can fall, and after falling can rise again, and after rising can fall instantly if it was to fall. There is a heart that can creep and a heart that can walk; there is a heart that can run and a heart that can fly. We cannot limit the various actions of the heart. Imagine how the heart can be illuminated in a moment and how it can be darkened in a moment, how the heart becomes a maze for us to enter without ever being able to get out again, how it can become confusion and how it can become paradise. If one asked: Where is the soul? Where can we see the soul manifest to view? Where is paradise? Where is heaven? Where is joy and pleasure? If one asked: Where is love? Where is God? We can answer each of these questions by saying: it is in the heart.

imagine how wonderful and at the same time how obscure to our view! If we call the heart the spark of fire then we can see its different aspects: as sympathy in the form of heat, as longing in the form of fire, as affection in the form of glow, as devotion in the form of flame, as passion in the form of smoke that blinds the eyes.

That which gives courage to stand firm in the battlefield, that which enables man to struggle throughout his life, that which gives him the strength to endure all that comes and strengthens him to have patience - what is it? It is the heart. If the heart fails, man falls, if the heart rises, man rises.

When the heart is directed towards one ideal, one object, one point, it develops, but when the heart goes from one point to another it is weakened, for then the fire element of the heart dies. For instance, a little spark can be brought to a blaze if one blows upon it, but the flame is put out by the wind. Why? Because blowing directs the air to one single spark, but the wind goes all around it and extinguishes the flame.

When man begins to say, "I love everybody" you can be sure he loves nobody. But when he says, "I love my mother, my father, my son, my daughter, my friend, or my beloved," then you can believe that he has taken his first step on the path of love. Can anyone in the world claim love and at the same time know love? The moment one knows what love is one loses the claim. One can only say, "love" as long as one does not know what it is. Before saying, "love" one must first show it by jumping into the fire.

As A Minai, the great Hindustani poet, says, "Your first initiation in the order of lovers is to become nothing." And another poet says, "Oh love! You have taught me that lesson first which many others learn at the end."

When a person says, "If you will be good to me, I will be good to you; if you will be kind to me, I will be kind to you; if you will be nice to me, I will be nice to you; if you will respect me, I will honor you" - it is like saying, "If you will give me ninepence, I will give you a shilling." It is business. When a person says, "I wish there was somebody who loved me, a friend, someone," he is very mistaken. He will never be loved; he may wait for eternity. Love never asks love of someone else; love is more independent than anything else. It is love which makes one independent.

There is love that is like an infant. It must be taken in the arms, it cannot stand; if it is not taken in the arms it cries. It is not mature, it is not developed, it is not yet love. There is love which is like a wobbling child that has not yet learned to walk. It likes to walk but it likes to hold the cupboard, the chair, the table, someone else, in order to go so far. That love too is undeveloped. Then there is love that stands on its own feet and walks by itself. That is independent love, and you can depend upon it.

Love shows its quality by constancy. Where there is no constancy there is no love. People have wrongly understood the meaning of love; very often they do not know it. The real meaning of love is life itself, the feeling of life, the feeling: I live. That feeling itself is love. So what is love? Love is God. And what is God? God is love.

As long as one is involved in selfish thoughts and actions in life one does not understand the meaning of love. Love is sacrifice, love is service, love is regard for the pleasure and displeasure of the beloved. That love, once it is understood, can be seen in all the different aspects of life: love for those who depend upon one, for those with whom one comes in contact in one's everyday life, love for those of one's country, of one's race, for humanity. It can expand even to such an extent that there can be love for every little creature in the world, for the smallest insect. This expansion is like a drop of water expanding into an ocean. Man-limited as he is-the more he sympathizes the more he expands and the further he reaches heavenward: thus he can become as great as the Absolute.

Therefore, instead of teaching the lesson of indifference, as many mystics have done, the Sufis have learned the lesson of love, of devotion, of sympathy, and have called it the cultivation of the heart. It is known by the word suluk, which means the loving manner. What we call refined manner is only a manner behind which there is no life. When manner is directed by the heart quality then it becomes living manner, the manner that comes from love, and all such attributes as kindness, gentleness, tolerance, forgiveness, mercy and compassion -they all spring from this loving manner.

The great teachers and prophets, and the inspirers of humanity of all times have not become what they were by their miracles or wonder-workings; these belong to other people. The main thing that could be seen in them was their loving manner. Read the lives of the prophets. First of all see the way Jesus Christ had with all those who came to him. When sinners who were condemned and expelled by society were brought to the master, he received them with compassion. He was not on the side of those who accused them, he was on the side of the accused. That was loving manner. The fishermen could never understand the master-even the most educated men would not have understood him, let alone the fishermen. Yet the master lived with them, moved with them and won their hearts in the end. That is loving manner.

Think of the Prophet whose beloved daughter was killed by an Arab, and when this man was brought before him and said, "will you forgive me?" the Prophet forgave him. When his worst enemies were brought before him in rows, arrested, waiting his command, he was king, conqueror and judge, the one who could do anything he liked to them. When they asked, "What are you going to do with us, Prophet?" he said, "You are my brothers. God may forgive you. I pray for you."

The compassion of Buddha went to every living creature, to the smallest insect; this shows the expansion of his love. Remember therefore that for higher attainment on the spiritual path study is secondary; all knowledge of occult and psychic law, all magical powers, are secondary. The first and most important principle is the cultivation of the heart quality.

One may ask: How to cultivate the heart quality? There is only one way: to become selfless at each step one takes forward on this path, for what prevents one from cultivating the loving quality is the thought of self. The more we think of our self the less we think of others, and as we go further the self grows to become worse and worse. In the end the self meets us as a giant which we had always fought; and now at the end of the journey the giant is the stronger. But if from the first step we take on the path of perfection we struggled and fought and conquered this giant which is the self, it could be done only by the increasing power of love.

What do I mean by love? It is such a word that one cannot give one meaning. All attributes like kindness, gentleness, goodness, humbleness, mildness, fineness, are names of one and the same thing. Love therefore is that stream which when it rises falls in the form of a fountain, and each stream coming down is a virtue. All virtues taught by books or by a religious person have no strength and life because they have been learned; a virtue that is learned has no power, no life. The virtue that naturally springs from the depth of the heart, the virtue that rises from the love-spring and then falls as many different attributes, that virtue is real. There is a Hindustani saying, "No matter how much wealth you have, if you do not have the treasure of virtue, it is of no use." The true riches is the ever increasing spring of love from which all virtues come.