Training the Heart to Love God
Can the Heart Be Trained to Love God? Bhaktivinoda Thakura on Spiritual Practice
Can we learn to love God? In his essay To Love God, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura answers by turning our attention to the heart’s natural movement. The heart already loves, but its affection may be drawn toward many temporary objects. Spiritual practice, as the essay presents it, is the gradual redirection of that affection toward God.
The Heart Is Already Moving
Bhaktivinoda Thakura does not portray the heart as empty or incapable of devotion. It is active, responsive, and easily attracted. The question is where it turns. People delight in beauty, pleasure, food, entertainment, and companionship; these attractions show that the heart is capable of affection, even when its attention is scattered.
The essay’s teaching is therefore not that we must destroy the capacity to love. It is that we must guide it toward its highest object. Love of God begins with recognising what already occupies the heart and asking whether that attachment carries us toward a deeper spiritual life.
Training Means Redirecting Affection
“Your heart now runs to other things than God, but you must, as you train a bad horse, make your feelings run to the loving God.”
— To Love God, PDF p. 4
The image is vivid because it describes both the difficulty and the possibility of practice. A horse that runs away cannot be guided by pretending it is already steady. It needs patient direction. In the same way, the heart may wander, but it can be trained through repeated effort and loving intention.
This image should not be mistaken for a call to harshness toward oneself. The essay speaks of training feelings, not denying that they exist. Its emphasis is on changing their direction: from scattered attraction toward a conscious relationship with God. (To Love God, PDF p. 4.)
Love Is the Soul’s Natural Religion
For Bhaktivinoda Thakura, devotion is not an artificial emotion added to human life. It is connected with the soul’s own nature. He writes that love is the religion of the soul, placing loving relationship at the centre of spiritual fulfilment.
“Love then alone is the religion of the soul and consequently of the whole man.”
— To Love God, PDF p. 3
This idea helps explain why the heart matters so much. Spiritual understanding may teach us about God, but the heart must also become oriented toward Him. When knowledge and affection move together, religion becomes a living relationship rather than an abstract idea. (To Love God, PDF p. 3.)
A Gradual Practice of Attention
The essay does not give a daily checklist, but its horse-training image invites a practical reflection. Notice what repeatedly draws your attention. Ask what those attachments are doing to your character, and whether they leave room for remembrance of God, kindness toward others, and a desire to serve. These questions are a modern application of the essay’s central image, not a quotation from it.
The heart’s direction can be renewed many times. When attention wanders, one can return to the intention to love God. In this way, practice is not a single dramatic transformation; it is a steady education of affection.
From Personal Love to Universal Kinship
In the same essay, Bhaktivinoda Thakura connects love of God with love for other people, whom he describes as brothers under one common Father. This widens the meaning of spiritual practice. A heart turned toward God should become more capable of seeing others with kinship and care. (To Love God, PDF p. 5.)
To train the heart to love God, then, is not to withdraw from humanity. It is to let devotion shape how we regard and treat others.
Let the Heart Learn Its Highest Love
Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s answer to the question “Can the heart be trained to love God?” is hopeful: yes, affection can be guided. The heart may wander, but it is not beyond transformation. Through patient spiritual practice, its natural capacity for love can be directed toward the Divine.
The task is not to become heartless. It is to let the heart discover the One for whom its deepest love is meant.
Source and Context
This is an original, modern-language article based on Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s essay To Love God in the supplied PDF. Page numbers refer to the PDF itself. The quotations and core teaching about redirecting the heart come from the essay; the reflective questions are editorial applications of its horse-training analogy.
