How Can We Show More Compassion to Others?

Compassion towards others implies that you have empathy. And you can only have empathy to the degree to which you are in touch with the deeper levels of who you are. If you live exclusively through a mental sense of self, then you cannot have empathy because you are completely out of touch with who you are and the essence of your being. The capacity for compassion is something that is part of the evolution of the human being. Humans. Even nowadays in this present time, there are still millions of humans who are so trapped in their egoic sense of self that they are incapable of sensing, feeling, the reality of another human being. The word that we need to use here is empathy, which is closely related with compassion. There are still many, many humans on the planet who are so trapped in their egoic sense of self that they are incapable of empathy. And then there are many others in whom empathy is present to a greater or lesser degree. And without empathy, of course, there can be no compassion. Now, this is particularly important when we talk about compassion with reference to other human beings or other life forms. For a moment, let's talk, though, about compassion towards yourself and what that means, particularly as awareness begins to awaken in you, you become aware of your own patterns. You begin to become aware of your own behavior. Not necessarily in the moment that it happens, but in many cases, those people who are beginning to awaken, the awareness is beginning to arise. Those humans become aware, for example, after they have engaged in unconscious speech, unconscious behavior, reactive behavior, and suddenly they become aware, oh, that's what I did. I got completely taken over by anger. I got completely taken over by my overreaction. I said things to that person that I didn't really mean, that they just came out of my mouth. Or even I could even go to physical violence. I did that. How could I have done that? And many humans who are awakening are experiencing these times when they begin to judge themselves as not good enough. So that is something to be aware of when you, as you begin to awaken, you become an observer of yourself to a greater or lesser degree. Rather than just being totally identified with whatever comes into your head and whatever words come out of your mouth and whatever action you're engaged in, you're so identified that there's not the slightest space of awareness. Now, there's no point in talking about compassion towards yourself to people who are so unconscious. So we talk about compassion. Drawing implies that there's some awareness in you. You're aware of yourself, you're aware of your behavior, and you experience different levels of awareness at different times in your life. From day to day. And then you become aware that there are times when you are unconscious. And usually then you wake up, so to speak out and say, oh, got taken over by my pain body again. And for many people, that can become a source of suffering because they judge themselves as not good enough. And they even have a hostile. Begin to have a hostile relationship towards the more unconscious aspects of who they are, your imperfections. So compassion towards yourself is to still realize there are areas in your life where you're still unconscious. And that's how it is. And you forgive yourself. Again, forgiveness is related also with all these things are closely related. Empathy, compassion, forgiveness. You forgive yourself for your moments of unconsciousness or if you've done bad things in the past. And this is often people have asked me that question in the past, when you were not as aware or completely unaware, you did certain things that you now regret. You recognize them as very unconscious. And what do you do with that? The compassionate way is to see that at that time you could not have acted differently because your actions reflected your degree of unconsciousness, consciousness, unconsciousness. And that recognition is compassion. You forgive yourself instead of making an identity out of your own past unconsciousness for yourself and say, I am this kind of a person, which is again a mental construct. Instead of making identity for yourself out of past unconsciousness, you recognized your behavior at that time as unconscious. So you manifested the collective, ultimately the collective unconsciousness that is in the human psyche, the collective psyche of humanity. And so when you don't make it into an identity, then you realize that it is not who you essentially are. And so you become compassionate towards yourself. But it also applies to the present, at the present time, not making impossible demands of perfection. And then you fall short. There are certain things, certain areas in your life that will never be perfect. On the level of form, you cannot be a perfect human being. On the level of form, there are always certain things that you are good at, other things you are not good at. That's fine no matter how conscious you are. So you don't demand perfection of yourself, not on this level of form. The realization is there is a deep. At the deepest level of who you are, there is perfection already. You are already perfect, complete whole. At the deepest level, yes, the outer level, there will always be certain imperfections. And so you have compassion with yourself as far as your imperfections are concerned. Which does not mean that you actually indulge in behavior that is harmful to yourself or others and say, oh, that's okay, I am compassionate towards myself, so I continue to get drunk three times a week and beat up my wife. And I'm just compassionate towards myself. This is not what I'm talking about. You cannot become compassionate with inflicting suffering on others as you recognize it now. If it happened in the past, that is different. So there are some forms of behavior that need to be rectified through awareness, through presence, and other things you need to accept. So there's wisdom required. But it's not that difficult to tell whether your behavior is truly dysfunctional and causes suffering or whether there's just certain things that are not perfect, but there isn't much you can do about it. You might be too slow in certain. For example, myself, there's a huge area of imperfection in my life that there are many things that I don't deal with or don't deal with on time. So sometimes things get emails. Emails are not answered. If you've ever sent me an email, you might not have received a reply. So I don't feel really bad about that because I'm compassionate towards myself. But if that causes you suffering, not receiving an email, I don't suggest I did not cause you that suffering. You caused it yourself through having certain expectations. So compassion towards yourself is important. Compassion towards others means, implies that you have empathy towards other human beings. And you can only have empathy to the degree to which you are in touch with the deeper levels of who you are. If you live exclusively through a mental sense of self, then you cannot have empathy because you're completely out of touch with who you are in the essence of your being. The empathy that you have for others arises out of the realization of who you are in the essence of your being. Because then by recognizing your own essence, you recognize the essence of the other. But I wrote in I Believe in the Power of Now that there are two aspects to compassion. One is you observe and you recognize this, perhaps the suffering of another human being or another life form, you can almost feel it yourself. And you may want to do something about it that is often part of it. Compassion is the sensing, and it may lead to compassion action, if action is possible or wise, or if you're able to do it. That's one aspect. The other aspect of compassion is not normally talked about. And that is to sense the essence of the other person underneath their suffering. Can only do that because you can sense your own essence by doing that, by sensing the essence of the other through your own and recognize that there is something in the other that is you. Ultimately, that's consciousness. So you recognize the consciousness, not the conditioned consciousness, but the unconditioned consciousness in the other. Then you connect with the other at a very deep level. And by doing that, that is a level of perfection beyond form. Then you recognize there is a dimension, a transcendent dimension in this human being that may be in suffering. There is a transcendent dimension, that human being that is beyond the suffering. But that human being may not know that, but you recognize it in the other. Then you still feel the suffering also of the other. But you don't lose yourself in the suffering of the other. You recognize the suffering for what it is, but it does not draw you into suffering also. It's just there is a. Something resonates in you, resonates with it. But you are not drawn into suffering by the other person because you are connected with the transcendent dimension in yourself and the other. But now you can truly. Because if you are suffering too, you can't be really of real help. You can truly help the other if help is possible. That if you are connected to the transcendent level. At the same time, there are people who are very empathetic towards others. And some of those people are called upon to be, to. To become professional helpers. You might become a therapist, you might become a social worker. So it's often people who have a lot of empathy for others, they choose helping others as their profession. And many of those people, at first they are happy with what they're doing, but many of them actually, after a few years, experience burnout, experience depression. The suicide rate among psychotherapists and psychiatrists is quite high. So they lose themselves in the suffering of others and make it their own. That is not something that you want to do and is not something that is necessary. And this is particularly important perhaps. Now, what I'm saying now for to hear for those people who are professional helpers, the essence of who you are needs to be always in the background of whatever you do, whatever action you perform, whatever words you speak, you need to stay connected with that deeper essence so that there is a peace and a fullness, the fullness of life, as Jesus called it, that you can sense that core of yourself as consciousness. You are consciousness. And the other also, ultimately is consciousness going through the dream of suffering, ultimately the nightmare of suffering. And you do what you can. So stay connected to the stillness within yourself. When you help others, feel the stillness, the alert stillness, and then do what you have to do. I'll say a little bit more about compassion. Compassion needs also to be. To exist within the larger context of Awareness, compassion is a wonderful thing. It is a sign that you as a human being have already evolved beyond complete identification with form. So that's. It's a wonderful thing. Nevertheless, the application of compassion, when it becomes action, requires awareness. An example. One could give many examples. You may see a homeless person in the street. Now, you sense perhaps the suffering of that person, and you want to. Out of that compassion that you feel, you may feel called upon to help in one way or another. You can buy a sandwich for that person and give it to the person. You can give money. It's also possible that you might look and say, oh, I actually have a spare guest room in my house. And so you invite the homeless person into your home because there's a strong desire in you to help. But the question is, is there wisdom with it? Also, say you invite this person to your house and wanting to help, which is a wonderful thing. And perhaps it works beautifully. Perhaps it gives this person a new start in life. Or it could be that this person that you have invited into your house rapes your daughter, steals from you, inflicts violence on other members of the family, and then leaves. So you have exercised compassionate action without wisdom. So what it is that you do as compassion arises, it requires wisdom. In what way can I help this person? And sometimes the help is not physical help, it is help. For example, some people in deep psychological suffering, the help that you can give that person is attention. You can listen to them. And perhaps out of this attention that you give, which is presence, this is what they need. Perhaps help arises through something that you say to them. How I started as a spiritual teacher, people came to me. They spontaneously, they asked questions. Then I said things. I could see their suffering, but I was not suffering with them. I could sense their suffering. I could sense a small amount of suffering in me. But I was deeply connected already then with the essence of who I am. And I realized there was no suffering. So when I listened to these people often, there was a slight smile on my face, and that smile on my face was there. They were talking about their suffering to me. And as I was listening very attentively, there was a slight smile on my face. And some of them suddenly stopped talking and said, why are you smiling? Do you think that is funny? And I realized, oh, I mustn't smile, because I smiled. Because I could sense something beyond their suffering that they themselves could not sense. That was in me, but also in them. There was a dimension where there was no suffering. And occasionally they, by me, sensing that they also could sense it in themselves. And that is called healing, spiritual healing at the deepest level when that happens. So I was helping many people, you can say out of compassion. But then I realized there are also other people who continuously come to you not because they want to get better, they want to suck up your energy, which is you give them attention continuously. And they love that. And they come every day with new problems. They don't want the solution. They get addicted to your attention. And if you continue to give it, you will become depleted, you will become. Ultimately you would experience burnout. And it has no purpose. Again, this is a similar case where compassion, the exercise of compassion in the practical realm requires wisdom. So there were some people that I had to say, I'm not going to see you anymore. And oh, how can you do that to me? But that ultimately was the best thing that I could do, for they were not ready for. But perhaps of what I said to them when I did see them, perhaps some of that remained in their mind and at some point it actually did change their lives. I don't know. But here again, helping people is great. Being used by others who are unconscious beings. Instead of looking for their own being, looking for the source of all aliveness and energy within themselves, they look to others to give them that aliveness. So they again, wisdom is required here so that you don't exercise compassion stupidly. It.