Compassion !!

[Guest guest]

Compassion is a divine attribute. It’s the only feeling, which is able to melt the heart away. It is very intense. When a heart melts out of abundance of love, compassion flows out. Like the overflowing of water being stored behind a dam during the times of flood, compassion also knows no boundaries. These are the strong surges of emotions, which arise in our heart.

Compassion is a natural state of beingness, a state in which God resides eternally. When we feel the surge of compassion in our heart, we tend to transcend our sense of self. All our thoughts stand still and it is in this stillness that we feel the waves of compassion. We feel wonderfully unified with the soothing waves, as these are the glimpses of our original nature. Compassion is akin to universal benevolence which knows only one thing and that is how to give out. And this conforms perfectly to the divine nature. God has only been giving out, all the time, never expecting anything in return. He is an infinite reservoir of benevolence and compassion.

We are standing at the other end of this reservoir and receiving the grace, depending upon the purity of our heart. To ensure this flow of grace, these waves of compassion have to have unrestricted movement. If we join this universal energy exchange and start giving out, we feel as if these waves are surrounding us with all the intensity and thus this divine attribute called compassion gets manifested through us.

Compassion is a goodwill towards others. All beings long for love and happiness and therefore, it gives us sufficient reason to cultivate and cherish the feelings of goodwill towards them. Compassion is the highest virtue because it tends to dissolve our ego without any effort. We feel a sort of ‘being melted away’. Perhaps that’s what the universe expects us to be. As we know universe operates with a wonderful effortless ease, in perfect harmony with everything, it never feels restless. On the other hand, we have seen ourselves behave in a restless manner in spite of having accumulated everything. It appears that this restlessness is attributable to our tendency of ‘not giving out.’

We know God never owns anything. But His essence pervades and constitutes each and every thing in this vast universe. It is His creation, which is not owned by him but given to us as a wonderful ‘gift’ so that we can experience it and evolve to higher dimensions of our existence. On the other hand, we tend to own the objects of this world. It gives us the impression of our self being expanded in order to feel a sense of security. These objects are, therefore, reduced to a means to increase our self-worth. We are not able to perceive their intrinsic worth, their true essence. Can we not observe them without attaching any price tag, appreciating their essence? This sort of attitude will help us to get rid of our sense of ownership. Once our ego stops deriving its strength from accumulation of the objects, there remains no giver.

In case of charity, the giver is always present whose sole intention is to strengthen, ‘his own sense of self’, which boosts up the ego further. Charity, being a mental product, is very calculating in nature.

On so many occasions, we earnestly wish to reach out to help people and express our most sublime emotions. When we see a person in distress, our heart immediately tends to get connected with that person and we do observe small streams of loving kindness within our depths, flowing out to that person. It is here and now that the seeds of compassion, lying dormant within our recesses, constituting the very nature of our being, tend to get invoked. Although the seeds get activated, they are not usually allowed to germinate and grow for want of right nutrition and environment. Our psychological set-up has been so conditioned by the so-called societal value system that it immediately starts analyzing the whole situation with reference to one’s profit motive. In spite of our innate nature of being kind and compassionate, we are, more often than not, constrained to think and analyze the whole situation in a particular pattern, which is centered towards the self. In such situations when we go through these surging urges to reach out to the other, we find ourselves lacking in mustering up enough strength to translate our urge into physical reality. This lack of strength can be attributable to a host of fears, with which our minds have been impregnated over a period of time. It may be fear of material loss, prestige, power, status etc. The urge to ‘reach out’ to others with purity of feelings and loving kindness, seems to be a direct blow in the face of our ego which thrives only on cultivating and furthering our sense of fear.

Whenever we come across such life-situations we generally find ourselves in great dilemma whether to express feelings of compassion, etc. or not.

Why do we decide to limit ourselves?