Cultivating Compassion

“If you want to be happy, practice compassion”

~Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama teaches that compassion is recognizing that someone else is just like you.  We may look different, speak different, like different things, come from different backgrounds, but none of this matters.  What matters is that all any of us really want is to be happy and safe. The moment we realize that all other people are just like us, compassion has room to be cultivated.

Yoga means ‘union’ – the union of the material self and the Divine Spirit that is within each of us. I also see it as the union among every one of us.  A Course in Miracles teaches that “If you are grateful to your brother, you are grateful to God for what He created…one moment of real recognition makes everyone your brother because each of them is of your Father. Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right.” Regardless of where you are in your own spirituality, I find this a beautiful way to make peace with everyone who you perceive as having wronged you, irritated you, hurt you, or upset you in any way.

It’s a reminder that we are all connected and we are all the same. We all suffer, face conflicts, have doubts, and experience fear.  When we truly realize that connection, we experience what Buddhists call bodhichitta, a state of awakened consciousness in which the barriers we set up between ourselves and others are removed and we experience a deep and profound inner connection. Our egos fade, and our true selves shine. Having compassion and love toward others in turn means we have compassion and love for ourselves. When you withhold love from others, you withhold it from yourself as well.

Feeling compassion brings one tremendous joy. But it can also bring great pain. To feel another’s suffering is to feel your own, and this frightens us. We so often fear our own pain, our own vulnerability.  But when, as yoga teaches us, we recognize and honor the Divine Spirit within us, we know we have nothing to fear because fear cannot reach the Divine and therefore it cannot reach us.

Sometimes that pain comes from trying to feel compassion towards someone with whom we have had a difficult time. Hatred is a powerful emotion but it’s not real. It’s merely something the ego created to protect itself. Hatred allows us to blame others for our life situations. When the ego has been hurt, insulted, or threatened, it points a finger at the culprit. Placing blame on others relieves the ego of its responsibility, making the ego “right.” Blame and hatred can do nothing to cultivate compassion. It can only destroy it. Non-compassion does not lead to happiness. It prevents it. And why would we ever choose to be unhappy?  It is not for our own egos to judge who is deserving of compassion and who is not.  This is simply a battle of one ego against another. When we bring yoga into our life and accept that we are ALL united, that we are not our egos, then we will have and demonstrate love and compassion for everyone.  

“The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are not protecting their egos and so nothing can hurt them.”

~A Course in Miracles, Ch. 4, VII.8.3