Compassion

Dear Hearts,

I was really struggling with compassion for a couple of years. It was eating at me. Deep down I wanted to be compassionate. I wanted to be a caring person. I believed I always had the best of intentions. When people close to me were hurting I was there for them. I would reason with my friends that there was another way to look at the situation. I would rather blame myself, look at how I contributed to a situation through my beliefs, my actions than play victim. I applied the same to my friends. I truly believed that if they took responsibility, they would be better off. To me this was compassion. I was genuinely invested in reducing their suffering. But for some reason this always had the exact opposite effect. I suffered because I thought I was compassionate but was not perceived as that.

The first step for me was a recognition that I am not compassionate and that I do not know how to be compassionate. This was very hard. Its painful when you shatter your own image of who you are. Falling in our own eyes is perhaps the worst feeling. A friend explained to me that when I am trying to provide solutions to reduce suffering I am actually just thinking of myself. I am more invested in my image of a person who can be fair, a person who is a problem solver. I am also imposing my way of dealing with problems through self-examination on them. She told me compassion is when you feel anothers pain, without the need to make it go away.

On the first night at the Oneness university, I got to experience this. While my roommate cried through the night in intense emotional suffering, I held her, listened to her, and at times cried with her when the pain tore through me as well. I had no interest in making her pain go away. So my first experience of compassion came after I surrendered to a possibility that I am not compassionate. I have since then had other experiences where I can step out of the situation and be there for people. I have also had experiences when I sense pain in another, but my personal pain is too much for me to reach out. I then surrender to the fact that right now I need to be compassionate with myself and feel my own pain.

God is where all contradictions co-exist. Sometimes surrendering to the fact that right now I AM NOT THAT (at least not having the fear of not being that), might make us experience the other fact I AM THAT.

Much love,
Samanvitha