The heart is where the core or the center of your being—your “innermost”—dwells. When you know your heart, you know your innermost. When your heart is “closed,” you areout of touch with your core, or you do not allow others to get to know it.

If you follow your heart’s knowing persistently, you gradually become far less exposed to pressures. Since knowing is so much more concrete than thoughts, feelings, and experiences,it is your first step to indestructibility.

When you closed up your heart in response to the pain, it took hold of you. Opening up to breathe into it and to contain it completely in fact has the effect of melting it away, leaving the heart refreshed and intact.

Your heart does not need protection, it is your best protection.

In reality, the heart is never really dependent and is not in a “state of waiting,” since it is by nature a source. A constant and uninterrupted stream of deep emotions flows out fromthe heart—ironically, the very same emotions that everyone hopes to receive from their environment.

The heart’s real nourishment is to give. It loves to give, because it is a center of dedication and devotion.

The heart can animate us not only in what we feel but also in what we do. It holds the power to enable us to achieve all our authentic goals.

Our heart has no quarrel with our innate limitations and shortcomings. It clearly knows that all human weaknesses, difficulties, and obstacles must be there as a necessary balancefor the divine powers in us and as a vital means for evolution and learning.