Sri Yukteswar said, “The first and most essential thing on the spiritual path is to uncover the natural love of the heart; without that one cannot take one step on the spiritual path.”
Swami Kriyananda said, "The opening of the heart must be understood as an opening of our nature. It is not something we acquire or impose on our nature. It is something we uncover through our spiritual growth.
Why is it our nature? God holds this universe together by the power of love, and everything is a part of that love. We are held to one another, to life, to everything by the adhesive power of God’s love. The more we develop spiritually, the more we uncover within ourselves the heart’s natural love."
Sri Yukteswar described those obstacles that prevent us from uncovering the heart’s natural love as the “meannesses of the heart.” There are eight such obstacles: hatred, shame, fear, grief, condemnation, race prejudice, pride of pedigree, and a narrow sense of respectability.
Once these obstacles are removed, we experience what Sri Yukteswar describes as “magnanimity of the heart” — great love for people, for life, and for God.
When we look around us and also introspect and start discriminating, in a process of 'neti, neti..' not this, not that, one realizes that what keeps us tied to delusion are these meannesses. One would think that hatred, condemnation, race prejudice, pride of pedigree and a narrow sense of respectability, are sort of self explanatory.
What was confounding for me were the others. For example 'shame'.
