When a tiny flower blooms, its petals open toward the sky, allowing the sunshine to touch all sides of it. This growth comes from inside—from the seed from which it has grown—but the sun and rain help to encourage the seed to grow. All that you are is already inside you. Your growth is programmed like the flower from a seed, but certain external things around you, like the sun and rain to the flower, do promote your growth.
When you think loving thoughts, this is like water. Drink heavily from this fountain, and you are encouraging your own growth. By having loving thoughts, you attract love to yourself from outside yourself—from others—and this is the fertilizer. But know that all growth comes from within. Do not seek outside yourself, for unlike the flower—which requires an external source of light—you, dear one, have the source of light within you. That light is your very consciousness.
You begin life as a spark of the Divine, and as you grow in understanding of your own divinity, you bring more of this light to the surface. You do not bring the sun to you—you release the light that burns inside you. By having loving thoughts—focusing on kindness, compassion, and love for your fellow man and all of nature—you shine ever brighter from within. Heal your world with your light. Be the sun which helps others to grow, and you, too, will flourish. It is all one garden.