Compassion

Dear seekers, I wish to give a talk on compassion. When we use our mind to understand the meaning of compassion, very often we are misled and we mislead others. But when we use our heart, we understand the meaning immediately, and we make others understand as well.

Compassion is God’s immense and intense Concern for mankind. When we show compassion to others at the time of their need, compassion is sweet. When we receive compassion from others while we are in dire need, compassion is sweeter. And when we come to realise that it is God’s Compassion that is enabling us to fulfil our promise both to Heaven and to earth, Compassion is sweetest. Our promise to Heaven is to reveal our divine qualities here on earth. Our promise to earth is to manifest all our divine capacities so that Mother Earth can utilise them for her own purposes.

We are all seekers here, and we feel that if we can receive God’s most illumining Compassion, then our spiritual journey will be expedited. But how are we going to receive this Compassion from Above? We can easily do it if we can feel that we are like a child, a little divine child. When a human child cries, no matter where the mother is, she comes to comfort him for, by pleasing the child, she gets satisfaction. Similarly, when we soulfully cry for God’s Compassion, God immediately descends with His Compassion-Power.

A child cries helplessly because he feels that without his mother’s help and guidance he cannot do anything. But the spiritual child does not cry with a sense of helplessness. He feels that there is a Source, and that Source is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. When we become soulful in our cry, we establish a free access to the Source. So the seeker in us, the divine child in us, cries soulfully and not helplessly.

In our ordinary day-to-day life, in our multifarious activities, we speak of Grace, divine Grace. From the spiritual point of view, there is a subtle difference between Grace and Compassion. Let us imagine a vast expanse of water all around — this is Grace. But when there is a heavy downpour, a shower, this is called Compassion. Compassion is Grace, but in a very intensified, one-pointed form. Grace is something general, which is for everyone whether he aspires or does not aspire. But divine Compassion, real Compassion, enters into our aspiring consciousness, our aspiring life, only when we feel the inner urge to fly into the Beyond.

Compassion wants to operate in us at every moment, but quite often, because of our ignorance, we resist Compassion consciously or unconsciously, even after we have begun to cry for it. In the ordinary life, if somebody wants to give us something out of his infinite kindness, and we do not take it, then the person immediately withdraws his gift, as if to say that we do not deserve it. But in the case of God, it is not like that. God never withdraws His Compassion from us. On the contrary, He tries to offer us more of His divine, unconditional Compassion.

Compassion is a power, an illumining power. But when we are extremely stubborn and reject Compassion totally and mercilessly, God at times relies on His Patience-Power. He knows that Eternity is at His disposal and that one day, in the process of evolution, we shall be able to receive His Compassion. Today if we do not achieve and receive His Compassion devotedly or gratefully, He does not mind. Tomorrow He will give us another opportunity and, in either the near or the distant future, we are bound to accept His Compassion-Power, for this alone can transform our nature. So God does not withdraw; He only uses another type of Power, which we call patience.

Before we enter into the spiritual life, compassion is something abstract. But when we enter into the spiritual life, and live a divine life, compassion becomes concrete. At every moment we feel God’s Compassion in us in either a subtle or a solid, palpable form. At every moment we can see it, feel it and grow into it.

The state motto of Louisiana is “Union, Justice, Confidence.” These terms are extremely spiritual.

Union. Union occurs between the finite and the Infinite. Right now we are in the physical, so we are all living finite, individual, separate existences. But when the finite enters into the Infinite in order to realise the highest Absolute, or when the Infinite enters into the finite to manifest its own Divinity, then this union immediately establishes one reality, one fulfilling reality. In the union of the finite and the Infinite we realise the highest plane of consciousness and, at the same time, we manifest Divinity on earth.

Now, what actually is being united when the Infinite and the finite join? It is God’s Compassion and man’s surrender. God’s greatest gift to mankind is His Compassion-Power, and man’s greatest gift to God is his surrender-power. When man surrenders to God soulfully and unconditionally, when he surrenders to God’s Will cheerfully, at that time God’s Capacity, God’s Reality, God’s Infinitude become his. Compassion is the magnet in God, and surrender is the magnet in the seeker. When God uses His Compassion, it is like a magnet from Above pulling us up to the Highest. And when we use our surrender, this magnet immediately pulls God down into our living breath. So when our magnet and God’s magnet come together, the Hour of God dawns for us in our life of aspiration and self-dedication.

Justice. In the ordinary human life, justice says, “As you sow, so you reap.” This is justice: tit for tat. If somebody has done something wrong, we feel we have every right to threaten him, frighten him, warn him, punish him. But this kind of justice is on the lowest rung of the human ladder. When we step up to a higher rung, justice becomes a kind of forgiveness. If we can forgive someone who has done something wrong, if we have that capacity, then we feel that forgiveness itself is justice. When we enter into the highest level of consciousness, at that time there is no question of either punishment or forgiveness. It is only a matter of illumination. The highest Self encompasses and embodies all of Reality. So if one part of its existence is unillumined, it does not punish or forgive. It tries to illumine that part of its own existence. When we watch the world from the highest plane of consciousness, we feel that the ignorant, obscure, impure, imperfect world needs illumination. Here justice is the feeling of oneness. Divine Justice is the transformation of our own unlit existence. Divine Justice is self-illumination.

In the ordinary life, we feel that equality is justice. But in the divine world, if somebody has the capacity to receive more Peace, more Light, more Bliss from Above, then he should be given more. Equal opportunity should be given, but if you have more capacity or receptivity than I have, then you should progress according to your own speed and not slow down to my speed. If you wait for me, then God’s Hour will have to wait for you, and you will not reach the Goal at God’s choice Hour. This kind of equality is not an act of illumination. If your time has come, you go. God has given me the same opportunity, but you have developed more capacity. That is why you have received more light and you can run faster towards your Goal. When God gives me the capacity at His choice Hour, at that time I also will reach the Goal. This is called divine Justice. God is constantly giving us all the same opportunity, but our individual capacity is not the same.

Confidence. Confidence is a most important quality in both our human life and our divine life. In the human life, usually our confidence is based on our ego, our unruly vital. The unruly vital makes us feel that we can do everything, that there is nothing on earth we cannot do. Nevertheless, it is true that in our human life, if we do not have confidence, we cannot do anything. But in the divine life when we have confidence, it is a different matter. This confidence comes from an inner awareness of our Source. We feel, “I am God’s son, I am part and parcel of God. Since He has infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, since He has infinite capacity, I also have the same within me. Right now I am not aware of it, but a day will come when I will not only be aware of it but will actually be able to manifest it.” This is called divine confidence.

Now, some people have confidence only in God and not in themselves. This is a deplorable mistake. They should have confidence in themselves, but they should feel that this confidence is coming directly from God. They have to feel that their faith in their own personal effort is their confidence in a capacity which has come directly from God. God has given us this confidence and God is the one who is experiencing this confidence in and through us. This confidence is nothing other than the confidence God has in Himself.

God always has confidence in us, but very often we lose confidence in ourselves. When we have been defeated once or twice in the battlefield of life, we lose all our confidence. But God never loses His confidence in us because He knows that He is the root and we are the branches. Since the root is firm and solid, how can the branches fail? God knows His capacity, His potentiality, His plenitude and infinitude; therefore, He has all confidence, not only in Himself but also in us, for He feels that we are His direct manifestation. Without us He cannot manifest what He has and what He is; and without Him we cannot realise what we have and what we are. We are part and parcel of God’s Divinity, His integral Reality; therefore, He always has boundless confidence in our capacity.