We began to descend from our spiritual heights when we started using the body in the wrong way. We are souls, and we begin a cycle of birth and rebirth upon taking a physical body. Eventually we begin to use the body for vice and, from that time onwards, a lot of rubbish starts to accumulate in the soul.
This is how we lost our peace, happiness, love and purity. All the negative things, which have affected us in this lifetime and those gone by, have penetrated deeply within the soul. It is nothing ordinary to eliminate them all.
We start by eliminating the obvious vices: dependencies such as tobacco, alcohol, lust. But the real effort is in removing the subtle vices, like ego. The subtle vices do not allow us to feel we belong to God.
The difficulty with ego is that it is deeply concealed. Most of us do not even know we have it. If someone says something to us about it, our arrogance increases. Ego destroys love. It destroys the ability to learn, so there is no more give and take.
Ego can be overcome by developing humility. There should be as much humility in the soul as there is honesty, so that the more honest we become, the greater the humility we have. Both go together. If we know how to bow, there will be love. If we do not know how to bow, love finishes. We have to bow down again and again. Bow, bow, bow.
I go through many kinds of situations all day long and I make sure I do not stop exchanging love. The secret behind this is to never stop the give and take of love with God. In this way, we can make our heart so strong that we are no longer hurt by anything. Hurt feelings are the main reason why the give and take of love stops.