Table of Contents
Truth and Compassion are not two things
Truth and Compassion are entwined. In today’s times, people talk about getting love, feeling compassion, and so on. But is it that simple to be compassionate or to feel love for the other? Are we confusing something else for compassion? How is Compassion related to a more fundamental human quality, that human beings themselves are becoming alien to. We shall explore these aspects in this piece.
Truth And Compassion: What is Compassion?
Often, one talks of a compassionate heart or a compassionate person. What does it mean to “have” or “possess” compassion?
Is it something that somebody can possess? Has it got something to do with kindness or is it pity? These are some questions that come to mind when we mention the word compassion.
Difference between Compassion and Pity
In the world, pity is often misunderstood as compassion. In pity, you feel that you are at an advantage and the other person is not. Pity is a negative emotion driven by the feeling of superiority of a subtle kind.
This emotion is due to a gross state of ignorance where the mind has not yet conceived the subtle sense of equilibrium inherent in nature. A heart with purity and equanimity has compassion.
When the heart knows what is true and what is not and chooses to align with truth, compassion is born, only as the next step. Truth is cultivated, and compassion is attained as a prize in return for that attainment.
Truth And Compassion: Motivated Expression of Pity is not Compassion
But in today’s world, people do not care for Truth and talk of developing compassion, here is where the duplicate form of Compassion creeps in. This is a pity.
For instance, serving the poor, feeding a beggar, helping the needy-
All these activities are exhilarating. We term these acts as ‘Acts of Compassion’. Although these acts are noble by nature, is that compassion?
Acts of service or help to others are purifying by nature. However, sometimes these acts may arise out of condescension or pity. Acts such as the ones described find their meaning in the motivated feelings that cause them.
Compassion is born out of the highest good in man, only after Truth and Integrity; not before that. It may not necessarily find expression through actions alone.
Compassion can never be cultivated, but Truth can and has to be cultured.
Truth And Compassion: Symptoms of a Compassionate Being
On the other hand, noble action may not always translate into compassion.When the heart is perfectly pure and crystallized, that brilliant disposition of the heart is compassion. A compassionate person has no complaints about life.
He simply watches life pass by in a detached manner without attaching the ‘My’ feeling to it. Thus, He does not claim ownership of his actions as he is aware of his own dependence on Mother Nature, which is just another name for Truth.
When the heart and the head are in perfect unison, not motivated by dominant emotion or cause, it becomes a compassionate act. Unless the heart is free of all worldly dispositions, compassion is not possible.
Test your Alignment with the Spiritual Subject Matter (only 7 Questions)
The scores generated in this Quiz are relative. There are no right or wrong answers. A percentage towards 100 indicates that you are more aligned to the overall subject matter.
Truth And Compassion: Mundane nature of Pity
Pity can never be Compassion. Pity focuses more on the action while compassion on the purity of soulful energy.
Thus pity is mundane while compassion is spiritual.Can compassion be moody?
Compassion is a state of being that has an insight into the great workings of Truth alone. People feel that talking kindly to others is out of care and compassion.
This is not exactly right.
If kindness is situational, then the words or the feelings that emerge cannot be compassionate.
No mood swings in Compassion
Compassion is a perfect state of being that once established, remains forever.It is a feeling that is universal and flows through a fully open Anahata chakra.
Indeed, it is uniformly shed from the heart of the enlightened on the rich, the poor, the envious, the greedy, the lusty, the kind, the unkind, all with the same intensity.
Hence, Compassion cannot be dependent on swinging moods. If this is so, it is definitely not compassion.
Truth And Compassion: Can an Angry Man be compassionate?
Even getting angry can portray deep compassion, unlike the popular belief that a compassionate person is soft and can never get angry. It is very much possible that a soft, kind-looking person can be extremely greedy and hurtful.
It is only your continued interactions with him, that will reveal that.
Strangely, an extremely angry person can be extremely compassionate if his heart melts for the well-being of all. His compassion shows through his very words of anger, directed with the intention of universal welfare, for the sake of the highest Truth. Some may also know Truth by the name Bhagavan.
Spirituality and Compassion
An enlightened man shows compassion by avoiding evil, knowing well that the evil man will hurl slander and abuse at him. The man of realization does not worry about his own self-esteem or image.
However, nature shall punish those who even ignorantly hurl malice at the ones who are truly divine. Hence, a compassionate man will not want Nature to take any such course.
So, out of compassion, he keeps away from sinners and prays to the Lord for the welfare of all. Because that is his intrinsic Nature. This is compassionate intelligence.
A truly compassionate man never claims any compassion, only the man who receives it can feel it. Firstly, to become compassionate it is important to become universal. Next, compassion is not a saleable philosophy. It is highly subjective and cannot be pinpointed or directed.
Truth And Compassion: Compassion is Universal
The act of compassion is the act of the heart alone when the heart and head have become one. Hence, Compassion is the sum totality of being. The actions of one who has a compassionate heart are utterly pure without an ounce of selfishness or worldly objective.
Therefore, only truly spiritual people can be compassionate.
Questions Against Truth
To be committed to Truth is now a practice that lies enshrouded in scriptures or in the book of edicts. People find it uninteresting and unnecessary to put something like this, into practice.
Well, what is the need to know or speak the Truth? When a lie can easily manage one’s life with minimum pain, why go behind Truth; where lies have so much utilitarian value? Why speak Truth and suffer when lies can be spoken and situations can be handled with greater ease and poise?
When a man is murdered, is it not better to suppress the news and handle the people concerned with loads of lies and let the event flow by, as clean as a whistle?
One can even claim, that the general population is saved from this negative news. Is it not better that the family of the man be bribed, to hush the outrage and agony, rather than getting hordes of people under the scanner of crime?
Well, this is the so-called modern worldview for you.
Truth And Compassion: Lying has become the Status-Quo
There is more concern as to what other people may think about you rather than being ashamed to look at one’s face in the mirror. Validation from the world has become primary rather than being able to face the Self.
Today, lies have taken the form of crime, a gory crime that has impinged into the lives of even the common folk. The common man has learned to lie and digest heaps of white crows openly lying about each other’s accomplishments trying to establish oneself better than the other.
Lying has become a part of the competitive world that runs narratives of a nation.
There is a free-for-all, where one’s worldly superiority is all to care for. There seems to be nothing more important than proving a point to the other.
Compassion stands no chance
One’s rags are not looked at, while there is more energy put forth towards reducing the other to tatters. The onlooker shall not be able to get even a glimpse of facts, in the current state of affairs, let alone truth.
Does Compassion stand a chance in the modern world?
This way of lying has become the order of the day. Brothers lie, mothers and fathers lie. The smallest unit of humanity, the nuclear family of father, mother, and child, all lie.
“Truth” as a concept, as reality is unknown in current days.Then why do we go on harping about Compassion and Love?
Truth And Compassion: Our Definitions keep Changing
When there is no foundation, how can there be a structure? The Vedic strictures warn man, against this nature of the lie. When everything floats thus in the turbid waters of a lie, there is no centering.
Our definitions of day and night shall change just as leaves change their color with changing seasons. When a man is driven by the sole intention of self-conceived profit, nothing else holds any importance.
The lie is the basis of the ” Use and Throw” mentality.
Even the once-doting parents, in the current day, have learned the art of manipulation, perhaps, the particle of the lie has infiltrated our very genes.
When lying, the tendency to earn profits and benefits is at the very root of modern society, how is it possible to conceive a stress-free world? How are we to conceive happiness or joy of any kind?
Material Benefit Defines our motive
When one lies as a compulsive habit, it should be understood that the light of the soul has become shrouded by the soot of deceit and worldly profit. Gone are the days when a man would lay down his very life towards upholding Truth, the very domain of eternal life.
Instead, man seeks solace in the company of the thief called profiteering, where the sole goal is to attain “material benefit” alone. The world today is unconcerned with what lies beyond.
It also is not concerned with “what happens at or after death”. Why should one care about it, while one is alive? This is the approach.
Truth And Compassion: Who has seen the Otherworld?
Is it not better to lie and earn brownie points in this life and body? Who has seen a world other than this one? One is almost certain that the Vedic view is a view of the demented one.
As long as one does not separate oneself from the gloomy world of lies and profit, death shall continue to be a fearsome experience, which shall haunt one, at the end of this life and perhaps take growing fearful forms in many more lives to come.
To say the least, the little robin of compassion lies smashed, dead, and buried somewhere deep below the rubble of lies.
You display your love by reading this valuable material. So kindly read and consider financially supporting us to keep our efforts going with renewed vigor! Supporters in India can donate via Razorpay while those abroad can use PayPal!
