How can we develop true compassion?
The world today faces an epidemic of separation—separation between us and God, between us and the universe, between us and those around us. It is compassion that reconnects us.
Compassion is very different from pity or sympathy, which stems from separation. Pity is when I say, ‘I feel bad for you,’ but I’m in the viewer’s box watching your life. It doesn’t make me a bad person, but it is rooted in separation.
Sympathy stems from pity, wherein I say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through.’ Again, it’s not a bad emotion, but it is rooted in separation. There’s a very safe line between us. I can even feel good about myself for being such a sympathetic being! My ego gets inflated, but I’m not of any real use to you, because having someone say, ‘Oh, you poor thing, I’m so sorry for you!’ doesn’t help much.
The only thing that really helps when we are going through a difficult time is to have someone be there with us, whether they’ve got words to say or not, whether they take us in their arms and we cry in their lap or they just sit with us and our tears. That connection and comfort of having someone with us, feeling us, in this deep, dark, horrible place is actually the greatest life preserver.
Compassion connects us. We talk about it so frequently with respect to spirituality. We all want to cultivate compassion, we know we should serve and help others, but if we’re doing it from a position of separation, it’s not going to help me or you. On the other hand, if I can actually connect with you and recognize that you and I are one, it doesn’t mean that I turn your pain into my pain and now you’re comforting me. It means that I’m able to be there with you, and I can respond to your pain as though it were mine.
For example, say, you are hungry. I should take care of you in the same way I take care of myself, as I won’t rest until I eat. If you’re sick, I should serve you as I would serve myself. That would be true compassion. This way, you and I are now connected, and I’m not doing it as the giver, the one who has, the one who’s sitting up above. I haven’t lowered you in my eyes.
If, when we give, we look down upon the receiver, we will never ourselves be able to receive. If we feel higher than, better than or separate from the receiver, we can never receive because we will always feel that somehow the giver is the better and higher person. So it harms us when we’re the giver, and it prevents us from being capable of receiving.
Compassion brings the giver and the receiver into oneness. It’s exactly what we talked about earlier—that if I fall and hurt my right leg, my left leg will pick up the extra weight. No one has to ask or applaud the left leg. It does it because it understands that the right leg is self. There’s a connection, a oneness. The left leg never says, ‘Oh my God, me again ? I just limped last week! Why is it always me? Why doesn’t the right leg ever pick up extra weight? Forget it, I’m not going to do it any more!’ It never says anything like that. If I injure my right leg every week for the rest of my life, my left leg will limp every week for the rest of my life. That is what real compassion is. We are really serving when we recognize the other as self, the universe and world as one, and that whatever we have isn’t ours anyway. It is not about perceiving oneself as a martyr, a good person or a righteous person. Compassion should just flow through us, and in that giving, we are connected.
Lastly, we have to remember to extend compassion to ourselves as well. In the world we are connected with, which we serve, for which we feel and meditate upon love and kindness, we exist too. This means that the compassion we have for others, the part of our heart that understands their situation, allows us to understand ourselves as well. We must open up our heart full of compassion to make space for our own shortcomings, our own failings, our own humanity. We need to recognize that, ultimately, we are one with ourselves, and the oneness we have with ourselves is the way to experience oneness with God. That translates into oneness with the world, but we must include ourselves in it. Otherwise, there’s nothing to connect to.
How can we help others become more present and compassionate?
On a spiritual and emotional level, the only people we can really help are ourselves. Many people come to the satsang and say, ‘How can I make my spouse/children/in-laws/boss more spiritual?’ If I’m on a spiritual path, it would make my life much better if the people I live with are also on that path. If I go to the office and they’re all focused on profits and the bottom line, and I’m on a spiritual path of compassion, love and kindness, it creates a separation. I’d like to bring some of that compassion into the workplace. If I have children and all they talk about is the brand of their jeans, I’d like to bring them along on my spiritual path.
The real difficulty, however, is that this can’t be done directly. Whether it is being compassionate, present or spiritual, these are virtues that stem from deep within us. This is not about how we act, or behaviour modification; it is about what’s going on inside us, and the only person whose deep insides we can change are our own. There is no way to make another person experience compassion, presence or spirituality.
If my goal is ‘I’m going to teach you spirituality’, it’s created a separation. I’ve made myself the teacher, and you the student. Now, this might work if I’m teaching arithmetic, but if what I’m trying to do is actually give you an experience, it cannot be done in a place of separation. The only way I can help you experience compassion is through being deeply connected with you.
I cannot teach you to love. What I can do is to try to make you love me. I can’t say, ‘OK, now, on the count of three, you’re going to feel love!’ Making the other person love me is the only thing I may have any control over. The only way to get them to feel love towards me is to love them. So to make someone feel compassion, presence or spirituality, the only way we can even begin is to connect with them deeply, and be a powerhouse of compassion, love and spirituality, so that the person feels those things too. When they do, it will awaken something inside them as well.
If I want to make you feel love, through my connection with you, through loving you, I may be able to slowly unthaw the part in you that doesn’t love. But to be able to do this, I have to love you. The only way to help anyone experience spirituality is to emanate spirituality, the divine connection, so that in our presence, others are in the presence of compassion, spirituality and love. Then, that will ignite something divine in them.
There was a beautiful young boy at the ashram recently, about eight or nine years old, who had come from London. The son of a devotee of Pujya Swamiji, he was here for about a week, and when he left, he said that he felt as if someone had reached into his heart and turned on the switch. Now, that’s not something we can teach. We cannot sit a young boy down and say, ‘Close your eyes and experience spirit.’ Sure, we can make him attend the aarti, and teach him chants, but we have no direct path to his heart and spirit, other than our own heart and spirit. That’s why, whether our goal is to help someone else become spiritual or to find love, the path is the same. We need to radiate such love, spirit, compassion, connection and presence that people around us automatically feel it.
Think of how when the AC is switched on, if you stand near it, you feel cold, not because you have done something, not because the AC said to you from across the room, ‘Become cold!’, but because it emits so much cold air that if you get close enough to it even on a hot summer day, you can walk away feeling cool. In the same way, we have to first experience compassion and love in ourselves, before we can offer it to others. Only when we do that will people around us also feel it naturally. So it’s all about us.
I’m very sensitive and find myself getting hurt a lot. What can I do to manage my emotions?
We are all sensitive to the world around us. Some of us are more sensitive than others, so we experience more pain when we are hurt by someone, or when negative things happen. How do we change that hypersensitivity into a quality that can actually benefit us and the world, rather than hurt us?
We can do this by recognizing that we can only properly respond to what other people do, say and experience if we are balanced, grounded, anchored, peaceful and joyful.
Imagine this: you’re in a room with people you don’t know. Maybe someone in that room has had too much to drink, or they’ve had a bad day, and they call you stupid, or criticize you in some way. You can reason, ‘I don’t know this person, they must’ve had a bad day, or one drink too many’, and it doesn’t affect you deeply. However, if it’s a loved one who has said this, you take it to heart. What this means is that we have allowed other people and the experiences they’re going through to define us.
One of the things I always emphasize is that if somebody hurts us, it’s because they are in pain. Instead of allowing ourselves to be hurt by their words or behaviour, we must try and feel compassion for what they are going through and understand that if they were in peace, that’s what they would exude. In this way, our compassion towards others serves both to inoculate us and to help them.
We are not just receivers of energy, but also generators. When you talk about being sensitive, you’re talking about a one-way street where you are determined by the world around you. In a stressful situation, you get stressed. In a peaceful situation, you are peaceful. If somebody’s miserable, you are miserable. But you’re not a one-way street; you’re a two-way street. So a beautiful way to turn your sensitivity into a positive quality is to focus on what you can give out, instead of focusing on what’s coming in.
When we can be generators of love and compassion, we are the first recipients of it too. If I’m generating love, I benefit inside. If I’m generating anger, though, I suffer first! We each have the fullness, goodness, completeness, divinity and infinite power within us to generate love, peace and compassion. These inherent gifts benefit us, and then, as a beautiful by-product, they benefit the world.
When you feel yourself being too sensitive, ponder over this question: ‘How did I become a one-way street?’ Shift your focus from the incoming energy to the outgoing energy. Shift your focus to the generator of energy within and allow that to heal you, and then to heal others.
What can we do for people who are suffering?
Compassion opens up my heart so wide that you’re now inside. It embraces our union.
When you’re suffering, you just want someone to be with you; you don’t need them to fix you. Because you’ve already thought of every possible option while mulling over your problem. What you really need is just their presence.
They don’t have to be miserable with you, just present. In that presence, we open up to them, and their misery doesn’t scare us. When we try to fix people, we tell them, ‘It’s all going to be OK’ or ‘Don’t worry’. What that frequently means is, ‘I’m so uncomfortable with your sadness that I need us, as a collective, to get out of this quickly, so let’s start talking solutions.’ But what people need is for us to just fearlessly be present with them in their misery and pain. That’s not easy, but it’s what we can do for people who are suffering.
Our presence, in compassion and a state of connection, actually holds the truth of the existence of joy. When I’m in pain, it is very, very difficult for me to remember and realize the truth of joy. And it’s not something I want to hear you say. If I’m in pain, I don’t want you to tell me, ‘There’s light at the end of the tunnel’, or ‘This too shall pass’, or ‘You should just think about the happy times’. Platitudes do not usually help in times of grief. But your presence which holds the experience of joy allows me to remember, without having it shoved down my throat, that there is another truth to the situation as well.
But I feel guilty when others are in pain and I’m happy. What can I do?
When we see people who are in pain or are suffering, we have to acknowledge them and take them into our prayers. That really is the deepest level of compassion. You should never feel guilty about being happy because when you’re not suffering, there’s always something to be happy about. Just because a loved one is having a difficult time finding something to be happy about doesn’t mean that you should feel guilty for finding it. You can help them, hold their hand and be present with them through that difficulty as well, but it doesn’t mean that you need to go down the dark tunnel of misery yourself. You can hold someone deeply and truthfully while they are in misery without diving in along with them. The fact that you are able to access joy in your life should be a gift to them as a light pointing the way towards another truth.