Love only comes to the door of a house from where the desire for love has disappeared. Love starts showering on the house of someone who has stopped asking for love.

But no rains will fall on the house of someone who is still hankering for love; love will not flow towards an asking heart. The asking heart does not have the kind of receptivity that makes it possible for love to enter. Only a sharing heart, a giving heart has the kind of receptivity for love to come to its door and say, “Open the door, I have come!”

Has love ever knocked at your doors? No, because until now, you have not been able to give love. And remember also that whatsoever you give will come back to you. One of the eternal laws of life is that whatever we give comes back to us.

The whole world is nothing more than an echo: you give hate and hate will come back to you; you give anger and anger will come back to you; you abuse others and abuses return to you; you put out thorns and thorns will return to you. Whatever you have given returns to you, comes back to you in infinite ways. And if you share love, then love will come back to you in infinite ways. If love has not returned to you in an immeasurable number of ways, then know that it is because you have not given love.

But how can you give love? You don’t have it to give. If you have love, then why do you wander from door to door asking for it? Why do you become beggars, wandering from place to place? Why do you ask for love?

There was a fakir named Farid. The people of his town said to him, “Farid, the emperor Akbar respects you very much – ask him to open a school in our town.”

Farid said, “I have never asked for anything from anybody. I am a fakir, I know only giving.”

The people of the town were very surprised. They said, “We have always thought that a fakir always asks, but you say that a fakir only knows how to give. We do not understand these subtle and serious things. Please just do us a favor: ask Akbar to open a school for us.”

The people of the town were persistent, so early in the morning Farid went to meet Akbar. Akbar was praying in his mosque and Farid went and stood behind him. After Akbar had finished his prayers he raised both his hands towards the sky and cried, “Oh, God! Increase my wealth, increase my treasure, increase my kingdom.”

Hearing this, Farid started to turn away. Akbar got up and saw that Farid was leaving. He rushed after him and stopped him, asking, “Why did you come and why are you leaving?”