Acharya Prashant explains that the heart does not beat merely to circulate blood, but because there is love. He illustrates this with a story about a female mouse, whose devotion to an idol of an elephant is famous in all four directions. She has never seen a greater devotee. She keeps an idol of the elephant, decorates it, and dresses it in mouse clothes. She sings devotional songs to the elephant, calling him unattached, merciless, and unfaithful, saying, "If you loved me, you would come into my burrow." The elephant hears these songs and sometimes thinks of visiting her, but then refrains, considering that it would destroy her little world, her nest, in which she is engrossed. Acharya Prashant states that if one is breathing, it is in the hope of meeting the beloved. He quotes Kabir Saheb: "Open the veil, and you will meet the beloved." He then explains the principles of the mind that emerge from this. The first principle is that every being is a lover; life itself means love. In ignorance, the energy of love transforms into desire, fear, jealousy, attachment, and an eagerness to enjoy. However distorted a desire may be, its purest form is love. The second principle is that the obstacle to attaining the one you love is the lover's own existence. The obstacle is not from the side of the beloved; the problem lies with the seeker. The one who is loved is not hidden or hard to find. The seeker has put a veil over their own existence, or rather, has made the veil their very existence. The third principle is that this veil is a choice, not a compulsion, and it can be removed by turning one's attention inward. The speaker clarifies that the veil is our very being, our ego, and the conditions we impose. To meet the beloved, one must have the courage to drop these conditions and face the unknown, just as the mouse must leave her burrow. He explains that the energy of love, without the guidance of knowledge, takes on distorted and destructive forms. The path to the beloved is through self-knowledge and dropping the veil of the ego. The speaker concludes by reiterating that the heart beats because of love, and if life were completely devoid of love, the heartbeat would also stop.
