' Love is expansion of the heart '...

Love for God is the expansion of the heart, and all actions that come from the lover of God are virtues; they cannot be otherwise.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

The Sufi establishes his relationship with God as the relationship between him and the Beloved. His worship of God is the expansion of the heart. His love for all beings and for every being is his love for God. He cannot find anyone to love except God, because he sees God in all.

If his love is shown in devotion to parents, to wife, to children if it is shown to neighbors, to a friend or in tolerating enemies, the Sufi considers this as an action of his love towards God. In this way he fulfills in his life the teaching of the Bible, ' We live and move and have our being in God.'

Jesus Christ not only told us to love our friends, but also, he went as far as to say we should love our enemies; and the Sufi treads the same path. He considers his charity of heart towards his fellow man to be love for God; and in showing love to everyone, he feels he is giving his love to God.

Love for God is the expansion of the heart, and all actions that come from the lover of God are virtues; they cannot be otherwise. There is a different outlook on life when the love of God has filled a man's heart.

The lover of God will not hate anyone; for he knows that by doing so he will hate the Creator by hating His creation. He cannot be insincere, he cannot be unfaithful; for he will think that to be faithful and sincere to mankind is to be faithful and sincere to God. You can always trust the lover of God, however impractical or however lacking in cleverness he may appear to be, for simply to hold strongly in mind the thought of God purifies the soul of all bitterness, and gives man a virtue that he could obtain nowhere else and by no other means.