Love is your truest essence and the more you can get in touch with it, the better your life will become and the greater level of healing you will experience. Because all healing is, in itself, a return to love and an acceptance of love in its purest form. And, in fact, it is only our stray from love that causes illness, be it mental, emotional or physical. Love is the solution to all of our problems and the lack of love is the cause of them.

Robert Kopecky

"The soul feels suffocated when the doors of the heart are closed." Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

There is a door to man's heart; it is either closed or open. When he holds a thing and says, 'This is mine,' he closes the door to his heart; but when he shares his goods with others and says, 'This is yours as well as mine,' this opens his heart. We must learn consideration for others; it does not matter whether they are rich or poor. We may have only one slice of bread, but when there is another sitting by our side we share that slice with him. By doing this, even if our bodily appetite remains unsatisfied, our heart is filled with joy to think that we shared our happiness with another. It is this spirit which is necessary just now to change the condition of the world, not political and commercial disputes. We must be awakened to the main truth, that the happiness and peace of each can only be the happiness and peace of all.

People pursue spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is attained through the heart. What do I mean by the heart? Is it the nervous center in the midst of the breast, the small piece of flesh that doctors call the heart? No, the definition of the heart is that it is the depth of the mind, the mind being the surface of the heart. That in us which feels is the heart, that which thinks is the mind. It is the same thing which thinks and feels, but the direction is different: feeling comes from the depth, thought from the surface. ... The Sufis have therefore considered the development of the heart quality as a spiritual culture, and have called it the culture of the heart. It consists of the tuning of the heart.

Tuning means changing the pitch of the vibrations. Tuning the heart means changing the vibrations, bringing them to a certain pitch which is the natural one where you feel the joy and ecstasy of life, which enables you to give pleasure to others even by your presence because you are tuned. When an instrument is properly tuned you need not play music on it; just by striking it you will feel a great magnetism coming from it. If an instrument well-tuned can have that magnetism, how much greater should be the magnetism of hearts that are tuned. Rumi says, 'Whether you have loved a human being or whether you have loved God, if you have loved enough you will be brought in the end into the presence of the supreme Love itself'.

So many gods, so many creeds,

So many paths that wind and wind,

While just the art of being kind

Is all the sad world needs.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This is how we change the world: hug a terrorist! This'll make you cry - did me anyway: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/hug-a-terrorist/

Song of Peace

Just listen to the music in your heart,

and the world will never forget it.

That music is the heartbeat of others.

Just listen.

Philip Claude Andermann

Behind a blood-stained curtain, love has spread its gardens.

Lovers are busy with the beauty of the love that is beyond explanation.

Intellect says: 'The six directions are the limit, there is nothing beyond them.'

Love says:'There is a road, and I have journeyed on it many times.'

Love detected markets beyond that market.

Intellect says:'Do not set foot on the land of annihilation;

There is nothing there but thorns.'

Love says;'Those thorns you feel are only inside you!

Be silent! remove the thorn of existence from the foot of the heart;

So that you may see the gardens within.'

O Shams of Tabriz! You are the Sun cloaked by the cloud of speech;

When your Sun rose, all the words melted!

Rumi_Divan 132:1-3, 6-8

The light of your heart can brighten the entire Universe 

O lovers! O lovers! I turn dust into jewel.

O musicians! I fill your instruments with gold.

O thirsty ones, I shall be the water-bearer today;

And I turn this dry dusty land into paradise, into the river Kawsar.

O lonely ones, relief has come!

I turn everyone afflicted with sadness into a king.

O the elixir, look at me! 

For I turn a hundred convents into mosques,

a hundred gallows into pulpits.

O unbelievers, I shall release you all;

For I am in full command, I give faith and I take it away.

Rumi_Divan 1374:1-5

Embrace the light 

and let it guide you

beyond 

the winds of desire.

Rumi

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. 

C.S. Lewis

The seeds of His love blossom in every heart.

The sounds of His flute fill every celebration.

Everyone thinks that he sings and dances

But no 

He is the only one singing.

He is the only one dancing.

Rumi

Love cannot be described in any language. But if and when a rare individual experiences true love, it is manifested in every cell of his body. In other words, it is like seeing the very Lord Himself in that manifestation. Love has a definite existence which can only be experienced and cannot be described by superficial examples. As and when it is experienced, not other proof is necessary.

Sawan Singh

Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secret of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

Khalil Gibran

Be a beauteous blossom of love.

Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti

Ride one! ride on! do not remain behind.

Know this! know this! your situation is most clear.

Gallop! gallop! you are fast riders;

Be proud! be proud, you are among the beauties in the world.

What do you have?

what do you have? that the beloved does not have?

Bring that! bring that! whisper it in my ears.

The night before last, the night before last, what was the tavern like?

Tell me that! tell me that, if you are drunken wanderers of the night.

God has a wine, God has a wine hidden from all; 

You and the world were created from a sip of that wine.

Rumi_Divan 637:1-5

Love does not compromise itself. It stays firm even in the face of disapproval, rejection, loss, threats. Love does not fly away in the face of fear. There are no conditions under which love leaves. Notice today how you react in the face of fear.

Dr. Margaret Paul