Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi offers a method for awakening love of God that he says is accessible to everyone. It is, he insists, "very near indeed." The key is a single verse from Proverbs: "As water mirrors the reflection of a face, so is the heart of man to man" (Proverbs 27:19).
The principle is simple. When you show love to someone, they love you back. This is true between equals. But imagine something far more extreme: a great and mighty king descends from his palace, travels to the most wretched slum in his kingdom, finds the most despised and lowly person there, lifts him from the garbage heap, brings him into the innermost chamber of the royal palace, a room where no servant or nobleman has ever entered, and there shares with him the closest companionship, embraces, kisses, and spiritual attachment with all his heart and soul.
Even a heart of stone would melt. Even the most hardened soul would pour itself out like water in response to such love.
This, says the Tanya, is exactly what God has done. God whose greatness is beyond comprehension, who pervades all worlds and transcends all worlds, before whom countless myriads of angels in countless myriads of celestial palaces are as nothing, this God has descended to the lowest, darkest world and given us His Torah. Not a summary. Not a simplified version. The actual will and wisdom of the Infinite, in which God Himself is clothed.
When a person recites the Shema with this awareness, the hidden love inherited from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bursts into flame. It shines "with its intense light, like a burning fire, in the consciousness of the heart and mind." The love was always there. It just needed to be reminded of how much it was loved first.