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LOVEANDCOMPASSION

Onewho knows the secret of lovefinds theworld full of universal love.

RamanaMaharshi

Love is the remedy of our pride and self-conceit,the physicianof all our infirmities. Only onewhosegarment is rent by love becomesentirely unselfish.

Rumi

TheNatureofLove

Formany traditional religions love and compassionare the central tenets of their teaching.Christianity speaks of agapeor unconditional love, expressed inmetaphysical terms as theGuardianAngel. InBuddhismselfless love or the AwakenedHeart is embodied in the figureof the Bodhisattva andexpressed through the practice ofmetta or loving-kindness and impar-tial, non-discriminating compassion in everyday life. AndSufismhas some-times been calledthe creedof love, where love is regardedas the highest stage of spiritual development. Thegreat classical Sufi ibnel-Arabi declared that no religion ismore supreme than the religion oflove. Love is the source andessence of all spiritual teachings.

Love defies definitionand description. It is certainly not logical or rational, eludes reasonandanalysis, and is perhaps best understoodby experience. Love takesmany different formsandexpressions (romantic, family, religious, love of country, love of nature). The differentforms of love are like the spectrumthat pure light breaks intowhen it passes througha prismofglass. When the light of unity passes through the prismof the humanheart it too breaks downinto a spectrum, andhuman life is coloured by it.

There aremany levels, degrees and dimensions of love. The impulse of love can vary greatlyindepth and intensity and in the way it is expressed:

Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not makeone person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but thelove of the ego. However, the intensity withwhich true love is felt can vary.Theremay be one personwho reflects your love back to youmore clearly andmoreintensely thanothers, and if that person feels the same toward you, it canbe saidthat you are in a love relationshipwithhimor her. The bond that connects youwith that person is the same bond that connects youwith the person sitting nextto youona bus, orwith a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity withwhich it is felt differs. (1)

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Ordinary love is focused on the formor appearance of a thing or person, while higher, uni-versal love sees the beauty of the essence, not the form. Real love, of the essential type, mayobserve beauty in all forms, but its attention is actually directed upon the essence which is theonly love in a final sense. A person does not love in this sense if their love is capable of distrac-tion. The Sufis recognize a continuumof levels or gradations of love:

What is generally called love can be harmful to the lover and the object of thelove. If this is the result, the cause cannot be called love by a Sufi, but must becalled attachment inwhich the attached is incapable of any other conduct. Lovenot only has different intensities, but it also has different levels. If man thinksthat love only signifieswhat he has so far felt, he will veil himself thereby fromany experience of real love. If, however, he has actually felt real love, he will notmake themistake of generalizing about it so as to identify it only withphysicallove or the love of attraction. (2)

Love is central to humanhappiness and fulfilment, and conscious living entails both the giv-ing and receiving of love. Love in action is embodied as empathy, compassionand selflessservice:

Unconditional love is inseparable fromauthenticity and inner freedom. It is alaw unto itself, a love that is totally proactive andappropriately responsive, notmerely blindly reactive. Love creates its ownwake, has its owndirection, movesaccording to its own rhythm, andmakes its ownmusic. True love has no sides,boundaries or corners. It is without circumference andbeyond inside andout.The heart of limitless love includes everyone and everything, embracing one andall in itswarmth. Genuine love is enough in simply being itself. Love finds its ownway and creates its ownuniverse. Love-practice combines selflessness, generosity,empathy, meaningful connection, cherishment and oneness. Love is indubitablyfound through loving. Buddha taught, Putting aside all barriers, let yourmind befull of love. Let it pervade all the quarters of the world so that the whole wideworld, above, below, andaround, is pervadedwith love. (3)

Gurdjieff once said: Whoever does not love life does not love God. And, in the words ofD.T. Suzuki: It is love which creates life. Life cannot sustain itself without love. This love oflife is all-inclusive, unconditional andalready withinus, at the heart of our being. StevenHarrison: What is love? It is not a thing but anenergetic connectionwithout opposite. It hasnothing to dowith getting anything. Loving is the radical abandonment ofmy construction, myideas the total acceptance of life just as it is. The power of love is themost transformativeandennobling force in the universe.

In the natural world virtually all living creatures exhibit love to some degree, e.g. the love ofamother lionor bear for her cubs. Love has awider, deeper significance when it connectswithother elements in life: Being an infinitely complicatednetwork of interrelationships, life can-

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not be itself unless supported by love. Wishing to give life a form, love expresses itself in allmodes of being. In every realmof life love grows out of mutual interrelationships.

Without love one cannot see the infinitely expanding network of relationshipswhich is reality. Love trusts, is always affirmative and all-embracing. Love is lifeand therefore creative. Everything it touches is enlivenedandenergized for newgrowth. When you love ananimal, it growsmore intelligent; whenyou love aplant you see into its every need. Love is never blind; it is the reservoir of infinitelight. Let us first realize the fact that we thrive only whenwe are co-operative bybeing alive to the truthof interrelationship of all things in existence. (4)

The interrelationship of all living forms also applies to humanbeings. As love flows out ofrightly seeing reality as it is, it is also love that makes us feel that we each is us individuallyandall of us collectively are responsible forwhatever things, good or evil, go on in our humancommunity, andwemust therefore strive to ameliorate or removewhatever conditions areinimical to the universal advancement of humanwelfare andwisdom.

The existence of each individual, whether or not he is conscious of the fact, owessomething to an infinitely expanding and all-enwrapping net of loving relationship,which takes up not only every one of us but everything that exists. The world is agreat family andwe, each one of us, are itsmembers. When this philosophy of theinterrelatedness of things is rightly understood, love begins to be realized, becauselove is to recognize others and to take theminto consideration in every way of life.To do to otherswhat youwould like themtodo to you is the keynote of love andthis iswhat naturally grows out of the realization of mutual relatedness . . . Love islife and life is love. (5)

According to the great Sufimystic Rumi, love is themotive force of all creationand leads tothe direct perception of Truth or God: Love, whether its immediate object be Divine orhuman, leads ultimately to the knowledge of God. All earthly beauty is but the reflection ofheavenly Beauty. For Rumi, love is a cosmic feeling, a spirit of onenesswith the universe:

Love is the essence of all religion. It has three important characteristics:(1) Any forminwhich love expresses itself is good not because it is a particular

expression but because it is an expressionof love. Forms of love are irrelevantto the nature of religious experience.

(2) Love is different fromfeelings of pleasure and pain. It is not regulated by anyconsideration of reward andpunishment.

(3) Love transcends intellect. We donot live in order to think; we think in orderto live. Rumi admits the utility of the intellect and does not reject it altogether.But his emphasis is on intuition and direct perception. (6)

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UnconsciousExpressionsof Love

Although love is our true nature it is coveredupby fear, insecurity anda sense of separate-ness and isolation. Most people equate love with pleasure and happiness, which inevitablyleads to suffering when these states are no longer present. According toGurdjieff, what mostpeople experience as ordinary love is unconscious andbased onphysical, mental andemotionalattraction. It is essentially dualistic: I love, I dont love.

Aswe are we cannot love. We love because something in ourselves combineswith anothers emanations; this starts pleasant associations, perhaps because ofchemico-physical emanations from instinctive centre, emotional centre, or intel-lectual centre; or it may be from influences of external form; or from feelings I love youbecause you loveme, or because youdont loveme; suggestions ofothers; sense of superiority; frompity; and formany other reasons, subjectiveandegoistic. We allow ourselves to be influenced. We project our feelings onothers. Anger begets anger. We receive what we give. Everything attracts or re-pels. There is the love of sex, which is ordinarily knownas love betweenmenandwomen when this disappears amanandawomanno longer love eachother. There is love of feeling, which evokes the opposite andmakes people suffer.Later, wewill talk about conscious love. (7)

Formost people love is basedonattachment and subjective needs, and is not truly free andindependent of external conditions andattractions. In contrast, love in the deepest sense isuniversal andnot limited or selective:

Tomany people, love is the ultimate attachment: whenyou love somebody youwant to possess them. Oftenwhat passes for love inmodern consciousnessis a very strong attachment to another person, thing, or creature. But if youreally want to apply thisword to that whichaccepts, then you havemett lovethat is unattached, whichhas nopreferences, which accepts everything and seeseverything as belonging. Whenyoubegin to trust in the awareness, the consciousmoment that is infinite, theneverything belongs in it. Fromthe perspective ofthis conscious being, whatever arises in consciousness is accepted andwelcomed,whether its through the senses fromthe outside or from inside the emotionalandphysical conditionswhich become conscious in the present moment. Thissense of love, acceptance, and non-judgment accepts everything that youarethinking, feeling andexperiencing; it allows everything to bewhat it is. Whenwedont allow things to be as they are, thenwe are trying to get something that wedont have or get rid of something that we dont want. (8)

Love basedon desire andattachment is dependent on changing conditions and circum-stances. If you love one personmore thananother, this is not true love, it is anattachmentcreatedby desire. To love all things equally, seeing the Self in all of them, is true love. It is love

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that binds the universe together and sustains it. When love is equatedwithdesire it preventsthe discovery of unconditional love and joy:

In his [Symposium], Plato defines love as being the desire to possess permanentlywhat is good. But the desire or the love of good is only conceivable if there isknowledge, a previous experience or a memory of the good. Onemight thus saythat any love is a home-sickness, a longing for a lost paradise. Themanwho livesin a conditionwhere he knowsno liberating activity, lives in a world of pain andsadnesswhich fromtime to time gives place to sparks of joy. All human endeavorstrives towards the keeping and the prolonging of suchmoments. Themistakethat most menmake is to believe that thesemoments of joy are causedby theconditionswhich precede them. It is a long andarduous task to free oneself fromthis error. What may helpus iswhenwe notice how relative are such joys, which,aswe very soon see, are not always producedby the same conditions, since whatis a condition of joy for oneman is not so for another, andwhat was the conditionfor yesterdays joy is nomore so today. Thus aman finds himself on the thresholdof true spiritual researchwhich beginswith a return to oneself. This is the firststep towards the Self. (9)

So-called romantic love is often tainted by subjective needs anddesires. Love is not homo-geneous. There is possessive love, love that wants to absorb, smother, control; and submissive,dependent love that wants to surrender, be cared for, comforted and given security.

Sometimes love has anemotional connotation for short periods. Truly lovingsomebody doesnt meanwe feel emotional about them, however. We can loveour childrenandwish theydwipe their feet before coming into the house. Beingirritated that they dont wipe their feet is anemotion, but the underlying love isnot. The love for ones children remains steady. In the case of romantic love,theres nearly always anelement of need, a thought that we are going to get some-thing out of it . . . In fact, nobodymakes us happy or sad; we do that to ourselves.Romantic love is full of illusions; genuine love, or compassion, has no illusions. ItIs simply whowe are. (10)

When a relationship is basedon real love it has anopen spacious quality inwhich there is anawareness of the silent background of essential oneness andunity. In stillness there is an ab-solute absence of any state or concept. Youare this fullness. This fullness is love, ispeace, ishappiness. It is indescribable. Dont try to objectify love or peace andmake a state of them.

Q: You said earlier that real friendship is the silence when there is nothing left tosay. Would you talkmore about this?

A: Let us say that you live with someone you really love. There may bemanymo-mentswhen there is nothing to feel and nothing to think. There is only being to-gether. You often feel it with coupleswhohave been together a long time. When

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you live with amanor woman there comes a timewhenyouknow all about eachothers past and there is nothing left to say. But the intervals are full, not empty,and the complete comfort in the interval is the background of the whole relation-ship. Then it is beautiful to be together. Everything comes out of this silence anddissolves back into it. (11)

Our usual conception of love is a faint reflectionof what its evolvedexpression is. Formostpeople theirmost sublime ideas about love are actually the lowest of the possible perceptionsof real love.

Q: Why is there somuch suffering in love?

A: All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the senseof unity be frustrated? What canbe frustrated is the desire for expression. Suchdesire is of themind. Aswith all thingsmental, frustration is inevitable.

Q: What is the place of sex in love?

A: Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love iswise, sex is blind. Once the truenature of love and sex is understood there will be no conflict or confusion.

Q: What canmakeme love?

A: Youare love itself when youare not afraid. (12)

LoveandSpirituality

Love is both themeans and ultimate goal of spiritual development. It dissolves the barrierbetween self and others, connects uswith all of life, and opens the heart to compassionandforgiveness. Love is basedon recognizing our fundament interconnectedness. We needeachother to become enlightened, because the development of genuine wisdomdepends ondevelopingwarm-hearted love and compassion. All the happiness and virtue in thisworldcomes fromselflessness andgenerosity, all the sorrow fromegotism, selfishness andgreed.

Love is the vehicle which leads humanity to spiritual fulfillment and completion. Withinhumanity there is anelement, activatedby love, whichprovides themeans of attaining to truereality, calledmysticalmeaning. The teachings of the Buddha offer a progressive path fromall-embracing love to compassion and joy which ultimately blossoms into the flower of seren-ity, your being naturally open to others as youexpand in the experience of light and radiance.

Whenyou see the suffering of others froma state of serenity you naturallyenter and become the other, you participate withpassion. Before you can truly

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understand the suffering of the other youmust be based in love and serenity not coming froma sense of agony. Be in the state of love and thenmake it active.Higher compassion is not thinking of the other as separate for you are irrevocablyrooted in the universe; there is no other. It is not compassionate for you to seeonly the suffering without also seeing the joy. Dont think that you have to followconcrete rules to become compassionate, just remove ego clinging and spontane-ously insightswill arise. Following rules will not bring you into a state of compas-sion, life is not that simplistic. The only solution is that yoube in a state of loveand serenity; the act is not as important as themotivation. (13)

The highest state of human consciousness is pure love: The ultimate dimension, in the verydepthof being, the supreme dimension of life, is universal consciousness and love. Each cannotexist without the other. Truthand love are one and the same thing.

True love is a universal, non-discriminating sense of care and connectedness. Init we can include those whomwemay not at all like or approve of. Wemay notcondone their behavior, but we can cultivate understanding and forgiveness to-wards them. True love becomes a powerful tool for transforming any situation.Love is not a passive acquiescence. Love is inclusive andpowerful, andwhenwetouch it in our spiritual practice this becomes a direct experience for us . . . Thereis no hardship andnodifficulty that enough love cannot conquer, no distance thatenough love cannot span, no barrier that enough love cannot overcome. What-ever the question, love is the answer. This is a universal law and a lesson in spiri-tual practice that our heartsmust learn. The Buddha said it clearly: Hatredneverceases through hatred. Hatredonly ceases through love. (14)

Love transcends our conventional ideas of what its true nature is. It is not limitedby ournominal conceptions, beliefs and formulations. It embraces the totality of life:

Love is not really the experience of beauty or romantic joy alone. Love is alsoassociatedwith ugliness and pain, as well as the beauty of the world; it is not there-creation of heaven. Love or compassion, the open path, is associatedwithwhat is. Inorder to develop love universal love, cosmic love, whatever youwould like to call it onemust accept the whole situation of life as it is, both thelight and the dark, the good and the bad. Onemust openoneself to life, com-municate with it. (15)

Love, according to Rumi, enables a humanbeing to integrate instinct and reasonwith intui-tive perception, thus allowing direct involvement with every aspect of existence. Love, serviceand knowledge are all integrated in one unifiedwhole: With knowledge youknowwhat loveis, andwhat it is not. With knowledge you can serve. Knowledgemay not be superior to love,but it is the essential prerequisite. If youdonot understand, you cannot love. You can onlyimagine that you love.

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Rumi regarded love as botha universal evolutionary impulse anda formative developmentalinfluence onhumanconsciousness: Mankind has anunfulfilled desire, and struggles to fulfil itthroughall sorts of enterprises andambitions. But it is only in love that one can find real fulfil-ment andpeace.

Themotive force behind creative evolution is love. It is love which compelsmatterto become life, and life to becomemind. Beneath the visible evolutionof formsis the force of love which actualizes all striving, movement, progress . . . All thingsaremoving towards the first Beloved the Eternal Beauty. The worth of a thing isdecided by its nearness to, or distance from, this ultimate principle. Life is a jour-neying back toGod; it proceeds according to a process of evolution. Themineralsdevelop into plants, andplants into animals, animals intomanandman into super-humanor angelic beings, ultimately to reachback to the starting point God isthe beginning andGod is the end. ToHimdowe return. (16)

Spiritual realization reveals that the experience of the Self orUltimate Reality is synonymouswith love. RamanaMaharshi: Only if one knows the truthof love, which is the real nature ofSelf, will the strong entangled knot of life be unified. Only if one attains the height of love willliberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. Love is our natural state of pure beingand joy:

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deepwithin you. You cannever lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body,some external form. In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own form-less and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animated your physical form.You can then feel the same life deepwithin every other humanand every othercreature. You look beyond the veil of formand separation. This is the realizationof oneness. This is love. What is God? The eternal One Life underneathall theforms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that One Life deepwithin your-self andwithin all creatures. To be it. Therefore, all love is the love of God. (17)

Conscious SelflessLove

Love exists in its fullest expressionwhenany sense of separationanddistinction is absent. Inthe words of Sri NisargadattaMaharaj: Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love thereare no strangers. When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desire for pleasure and fear ofpain ceases; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure inten-sity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving fromaperennial source.

The purest formof love is all-encompassing andembraces all that lives. In love there is nome. In love we are in relationship and in relationship everything is in contact with everythingelse, everything is part of everything else. We cannot be separate in love.

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Love simply is. By its very nature, it is without conditions or limits. Because itdoes not pursue anything, it does not fear anything. It has no dependencies,attachments, vested interests, or possessions. Because it does not, and cannot,cling to anything, it is completely without frustration, envy, anger, jealousy, dis-appointment or sorrow. It is freedom. Our problems are not with love, but withthe thingswe call love, whichare really clinging, longing, depending, worrying,projecting, manipulating, and trying to control. These bring endlessmisery andloneliness. They are the process by whichwe torment ourselves unknowingly,out of ignorance. Loving has nothing to dowith any of these things. It is beauty,freedomand joy without measure. (18)

At its deepest level love is both personal and impersonal, without limit or definition. Whenyou recognize yourself completely inothers andwhen theres nomore separationbetweenyouand them, theres love. You realize that what you are is also what the other being is. Wheretheres nomore youand others, theres only love.

Love canonly exist when theres no concept of love. As long as its limitedbya concept, its imprisoned. Youwant to define love, and theword define literallymeans to limit. Your desire to define love thisway or that way turns it into yourpossession, a love that youhave at your disposal, a love that has an owner. Lovethats thus limited and imprisoned certainly isnt the infinite love that everyonelongs for.

Q: But isnt there a love that isnt imprisoned?

A: There is. It existswhere theres nobody who could own love. This love is free-dom, and only this is love. Love is the absence of a personwhodefines true lovethisway or another. Love is the absence of onewho discriminates.

Q: Do you also approve of personal love, the spontaneous love thats directed ata particular humanbeing?

A: Whenyou recognize yourself completely inothers andwhen theres nomoreseparation betweenyouand them, theres love. Then love is synonymouswithSelf-realization. You realize that what youare is alsowhat the other being is.Where there is nomore youand others, theres only love. Everyone desires thislove; its the truemeaning of relationship. (19)

All living things, whether plants, insects, animals or humanbeings, are interrelated and inter-dependent. For instance, asGurdjieff observed, plants act ona personsmoods and the emo-tions of a person can affect a plant. Zen teacher Philip Kapleau: Universal or cosmic love is anatural outpouring toward all creatures, great or small, and is fueledby direct awareness of theindivisibility of all life. When one loves in thisway there is no attachment and no expectation of

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something in return. Such oceanic love is realized not by standing apart, alonewith the belov-ed, but by relinquishing ones self and in so doing embracing all selves.

The highest formof love welcomes the totality of life. Love is boundless. What is limited toa few cannot be called love. All is lovedand lovable. Nothing is excluded.

Whenyou love the Self and nothing else, yougobeyond the selfish and the un-selfish. All distinctions lose theirmeaning. Love of one and love of all merge to-gether in love, pure and simple, addressed to none, denied to none. Stay in thatlove, go deeper anddeeper into it, investigate yourself and love the investigationand youwill solve not only your ownproblemsbut also the problemsof humanity.Youwill knowwhat to do. (20)

Real love expresses itself in everyday life throughour relationshipswithother people andtheworld. In the words of Byron Katie: Love doesnt standby it moveswith the speedofclarity. Love is action. It is clear, kind, effortless and irresistible. Love is not a state of quies-cence but rather a living expressionof energy in action:

It is the nature of love to express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties.Once you have understood that the world is love in action, youwill look at itquite differently. But first your attitude to sufferingmust change. Suffering isprimarily a call for attention, which itself is amovement of love. More than hap-piness, love wants growth, the widening anddeepening of consciousness andbeing. Whatever prevents becomes a cause of pain and love does not shirk frompain. Sattva, the energy that works for righteousness andorderly development,must not be thwarted. When obstructed it turns against itself andbecomesdestructive. Whenever love iswithheld and suffering allowed to spread, war be-comes inevitable. Our indifference to our neighbours sorrow brings suffering toour door. (21)

Objective, conscious lovemay sometimes appear in a formthat seems contradictory or evenapparently malicious or cruel. Anexample is so-called tough love, whereby someonemay begenuinely helped by being challengedor criticized. Gurdjieff describes this process in a conver-sation recorded by one of his pupils:

Whenasked to define a proper, objectivelymoral love betweenpeople one foranother he said that it would be necessary to develop oneself to suchan extentthat it wouldbe possible to know andunderstandenough to be able to aid some-one else indoing something necessary for himself, evenwhen that personwas notconscious of the need, andmight work against you. Only in this sense was loveproperly responsible andworthy of the name of real love. He added that, evenwiththe best of intentions, most people wouldbe too afraid to love another person in anactive sense, or even to attempt to do anything for them; and that one of the terrify-ing aspects of love was that while it was possible to help another person to a certain

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degree, it was not possible to actually do anything for them. If you see anotherman fall down, whenhemust walk, you canpick himup. But, although to take onemore step ismore necessary for himeven thanair, hemust take the step alone; itis impossible for another person to take it for him. (22)

There is noneed to acquire or develop love since it is already fully present as our own truenature. Silence is the backgroundof all that happens, all that appears and disappears. It isunqualified love. Themoment you live knowingly inoneness, there are no others. There isonly Self. This is love.

The state of pure being, the sense of I am, is the love to be. This love is not individual orpersonal love, but is the indwelling principle animating all beings, the life force itself. YourownBeingness is love and bliss. Youhave objectified your love. Your very nature is love. Bystabilizing inBeingness you collect all the love whichwas diffusedand spread outside. Youabide in the knowledge I am.

This love is the universal love. Not directed at any particular personor thing,it is verymuch like space. Space does not say, I amexclusively for so and so.It does not make love privately to someone. That love ismanifest anduniversal.Because you identify with the body, all the troubles begin. Primary love is loveto be only after that can you think of loving others. Why do you strive to be?simply, because you love to be. The biggest stumbling block is the identifica-tionwith the body-mind. Understand that it is not that you can becomeGod;you areGod. Youare godly. Originally, but youbecame something you are not.You shouldunderstand that your destination is your ownself, the I am. It is thevery source of everything. (23)

Compassion

The cultivationof compassion lies at the heart of the worlds spiritual traditions. For in-stance, Buddhist teachings stress the importance ofmetta, loving-kindness and non-discrimi-native love, and karun, compassion and the active alleviationof the suffering of others. TheBuddhist ideal of compassion is all-embracing and amanifestation of absolute, unconditionallove: The Perfect Compassionof Buddhahood is a Love that is identical withPerfect Wisdom,that arises not fromany formof clinging, but froma total liberation fromall attachments.

Metta is generosity of the heart that wishes happiness to all beings, bothoneselfandothers. Lovingkindness softens themindandheart with feelings of benevo-lence. Themindbecomes pliable and the heart gentle asmetta seeks the welfareandbenefit of all. The feeling of lovingkindness expresses the simple wish Mayyou be happy. Because we react less and remainmore openwhenwe cultivatemetta, the softness andpliability of love becomes the ground forwisdom. We see

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with greater clarity what iswholesome and skillful in our life andwhat is not. Asthis discriminating wisdomgrows, wemakewiser life choices that lead us againto greater happiness andmore love. In a beautifully interrelatedway, mindfulnesscreates the field inwhichmetta grows. We first collect the attentionand gatherthe scatteredmind. In the beginning of mindfulness practice, wemay be distractedor overcome by hindrances. But slowly awarenessworks itsmagic. We observe,come back frombeing lost, begin again, andgradually ourmind becomesmoreaccepting, less reactive, and less judgmental. We do not get so totally lost in dis-cursive thoughts. A soft andgentle awareness allows ourmindand heart to relax,to loosen, to open. (24)

In the Buddhist tradition, abodhisattva is a personwhoprovides selfless service to othersregardless of the situation or circumstance:

Q: I assume that being a bodhisattvameans helping people, andpeople makespecific demands. So, a bodhisattvamust performspecific acts. But how doesthis idea of being totally open fit inwith the need to performspecific acts?

A: Being open does not meanbeing unresponsive, a zombie. It means being freeto dowhatever is called for in a given situation. Because youdonot want anythingfromthe situation, you are free to act in the way genuinely appropriate to it. And,similarly, if other people want something fromyou, that may be their problem.You do not have to try to ingratiate yourself with anyone. Opennessmeans beingwhat you are. If you are comfortable being yourself, then anenvironment of open-ness and communicationarises automatically andnaturally. (25)

A noble or compassionate heart radiates a selfless love which includes but also ultimatelytranscends simple kindness to others. It is genuine andheartfelt sympathy, a total communionbetween twohumanbeings built on a foundation of deep spiritual understanding andwisdom:

In reality Compassionhas nothing particularly to dowith being compassionate,in the sense of being charitable or kind to ones neighbours or giving regular do-nations to refugees or various charitable organizations, although that may also beincluded. Real charity is fundamental; it amounts to developingwarmthwithinoneself. Out of simplicity and awareness the Bodhisattva develops selflesswarmth.He doesnt even think in terms of his ownpsychological benefit; he doesnt think,Iwould like to see himnot suffering. I does not come into it at all. He speaksand thinks andacts spontaneously, not thinking even in terms of helping, or ful-filling any particular purpose. He does not act on religious or charitable groundsat all. He just acts according to the true, present moment, throughwhichhe de-velops a kindof warmth. And there is great warmth in this awareness andalsogreat creativity. His actions are not limitedby anything andall sorts of creative im-pulses just arise inhimand are somehow exactly right for that particularmoment.(26)

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True compassion is based on love and a non-dual understanding of life free fromany senseof separationanddivision. It emerges naturally whenonesmind and heart are open towhat-ever arises in experience. Love is a universal force that flows throughus, it is our beingness.When there is oneness there is happiness, there is affection, there is compassion. ByronKatiedescribes a depth of compassion that has nomotive anddoes not judge or discriminate:

How can Inot be available to anyonewhoasksme for help? I love people just theway they are, whether they see themselves as saints or sinners. I know that eachof us is beyond categories, unfathomable. Its not possible to reject people unlessyou believe your story about them. And, really, I dont accept or reject; Iwelcomeeveryonewithopenarms. This doesnt mean that I condone the harmthat peopledo, or any formof unkindness. But no one is bad by nature. When someone harmsanother humanbeing, its because he or she is confused. This is as true of ordinarypeople as of themurderers and rapists Iwork with inprisons. (27)

Compassionhas sometimes been called the language of the heart. The seedof compas-sion lies in the discovery of the universal nature of humanexperience which transcends gender,age, race, geographical locationand historical time:

Compassion is not just a feeling; it is a response to pain that is deeply rooted inwisdom. It is a commitment to alleviating suffering and the cause of suffering inall its forms. The humanstory is bothpersonal anduniversal. Our personal ex-periences of pain and joy, grief and despair, may be unique to each of us in theforms they take, yet our capacity to feel grief, fear, loneliness and rage, aswellas delight, intimacy, joy, andease, are our commonbonds as humanbeings.They are the language of the heart that crosses the borders of I and you.In themidst of despair or pain, youmay be convinced that noone has ever feltthisway before. Yet there is no pain you canexperience that has not been ex-periencedbefore by another in a different time or place. Our emotional worldis universal. (28)

Compassionnaturally ariseswhen there is inner peace anda certain detachment fromtheworld of ever-changing perceptionandexperience. Youabide in Being unchanging, timeless,deathless and youare no longer dependent for fulfillment and happiness on the outerworldof constantly fluctuating forms. You canenjoy them, play with them, create new forms, appre-ciate the beauty of it all. But there will be noneed to attach yourself to any of it.

Q: Whenyou become this detached, does it not mean that youalso become re-mote fromother humanbeings?

A: On the contrary. As long as youare unaware of Being, the reality of otherhumanswill elude you, because youhave not found your own. Yourmindwilllike or dislike their form, which is not just their body but includes theirmindaswell. True relationship becomes possible only when there is anawareness of

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Being. Coming fromBeing, youwill perceive another persons body andmindasjust a screen, as it were, behindwhich you can feel their true reality, as you feelyours. So, when confrontedwith someone elses suffering or unconscious be-havior, you stay present and in touchwithBeing andare thus able to look beyondthe formand feel the other persons radiant andpure Being throughyour own.At the level of Being, all suffering is recognized as an illusion. Suffering is due toidentificationwith form. Miracles of healing sometimes occur through this reali-zation, by awakening Being-consciousness inothers if they are ready. (29)

Compassionate action is a positive, harmonizing force in everyday life. This living compas-siongoes hand in handwithwisdom, andwisdomwith compassion:

Loving friendliness is the underlying principle behindall wholesome thoughts,words and deeds. With loving friendliness, we recognizemore clearly the needsof others and help themreadily. With thoughts of loving friendlinesswe appre-ciate the success of otherswithwarm feeling. We need loving friendliness inorder to live andwork with others in harmony. Loving friendliness protects usfromthe suffering causedby anger and jealousy. Whenwe cultivate our lovingfriendliness, our compassion, our appreciative joy for others, and our equanimity,we not onlymake lifemore pleasant for those aroundus, our own lives becomepeaceful and happy. The power of loving friendliness, like the radiance of theSun, is beyondmeasure. (30)

The jewel of compassion is the awareness of the deep connectionbetweenoneself, otherpeople and the natural world. There are two sides to this bond, common to all humanity: theinevitability of the death of the physical formof every living creature and the reality of theeternal, timeless dimensionof our true nature pure Being:

The realizationof this deathless dimension, your true nature, is the other sideof compassion. Ona deep feeling level, younow recognize not only your ownimmortality but throughyour own that of every other creature aswell. On thelevel of form, you sharemortality and the preciousness of existence. On thelevel of Being, you share eternal, radiant life. These are the two aspects of com-passion. In compassion, the seemingly opposite feelings of sadness and joymergeinto one andbecome transmuted into a deep inner peace. This is the peace ofGod. It is one of themost noble feelings that humans are capable of, and it hasgreat healing and transformative power. But true compassion, as Ihave just de-scribed it, is as yet rare. To have deep empathy for the suffering of another beingcertainly requires a highdegree of consciousness but represents only one side ofcompassion. It is not complete. True compassiongoes beyondempathy or sym-pathy. It does not happenuntil sadnessmergeswith joy, the joy of Being beyondform, the joy of eternal life. (31)

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LoveandCompassionTowardsOurselves

Before we can treat otherswith compassionwe need to beginwith ourselves. Buddhistteacher PemaChdrn: The basis of any kindof compassionate action is the insight that theotherswho seemtobe out there are some kind of mirror image of ourselves. Bymakingfriendswith yourself, youmake friendswithothers. By hurting others, you hurt yourself.

In cultivating loving-kindness, we train first to be honest, loving and compassion-ate toward ourselves. Rather thannurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivatea clear-seeing kindness. Sometimeswe feel goodand strong. Sometimeswe feelinadequate andweak. But likemother love,maitri is unconditional. Nomatter howwe feel, we canaspire to be happy. We can learn to act and think inways that sowseeds of our future well-being, gradually becomingmore aware of what causes hap-piness aswell aswhat causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it isdifficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others. (32)

Compassionbegins by learning to be gentle, accepting and kind to ourselves. Love yourselfwisely and youwill reach the summit of perfection. Everybody loves their body, but few lovetheir real being. Your real being is love itself and yourmany loves are its reflections accordingto the situation at themoment.

To develop true compassion, cultivate openawareness. Themore openyou be-come, themore youwill be able to offer assistance to all living beings. And themore you respond to the problemsof others, themore your ownproblemswilldissolve. Gradually, the distinction betweenyourwelfare and thewelfare ofothers disappears, and you see that whenyouare no longer self-preoccupied,there is no individual problem. When youhave gone beyondachieving, beyondthoughts, beyond giver and gift and recipient, beyondall dualities, then you havereached compassion. Whengiving is completely free of attachment andgrasping,it is significant andappropriate, the natural expression of anawakenedheart. (33)

Until we can unconditionally love ourselveswe cannot truly love others. Explore in youwhat is lovable andgive all your intelligence and capacity towhat is lovable in you. What islovable in you is also lovable in the other one. To really love another, youmust first loveyourself but not what you ordinarily call yourself because our true self is the self of all.

Q: What is love in life, how does it function, because sometimes it seemsdifficultand sometimes it is easy?

A: Before loving your surroundings, youmust first love yourself. Not, of course,the image that youhave of yourself, but your real self. When you look at thingsfromthis higher principle whichwe call love, all things become lovable. Thingsappear constantly according to your point of view. Lovemust become your

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nearest. It is your nearest andalso your dearest. Be in identity with it. In lovethere is noplace for somebody. Love is not a state which yougo in andout of.It is the principle which is our permanence. (34)

It is not easy to love other humanbeings until we are in touchwith a love grounded in theexperience of our true nature timeless being andpresence. When love and compassion aretruly alive we feel it in others because it is not personal its essence is commonwith all humanbeings. Compassion is open, free, and limitless. Indescribable and utterly beyond intellectualcomprehension, it responds to any situation spontaneously andwithout calculation, yet in away that enlightens and transforms.

Q: I find it much easier to unconditionally love nature andanimals than humanbeings, except very young children, because animals and nature and very youngchildren are innocent and not devious like humanbeings. Can you comment?

A: It is true that it takesmorematurity to love humanbeings, to know that theyare onewith you.

Q: How can Iget beyondall the unlovable things in the personality to come towhat ismost lovable?

A: First youmust believe what I say to you, that youare lovable. Then, like ascientist, followmy advice, the same advice that I followed to know that youarelovable! Discover that youare not your body, senses andmind, but somethingbeyond. Whenyou have inquired into the body, senses andmind, there comesa point when there is nomore to inquiry and you feel yourself directionless, at aliving point fromwhichall direction flows. Youwill find yourself in identity withit. It remembers you fromtime to time. Be thismoment. It will be your comp-anion all your life. (35)

Love embraces all that exists, including ourselves. Sri NisargadattaMaharaj: Your love ofthe world is the reflection of your love of yourself, for your world is of your owncreation. Lightand love are impersonal, but they are reflected in yourmindas knowing andwishing oneselfwell and The pleasure to be is the simplest formof self-love, which later grows into love ofthe Self. Insteadof trying to be this or that, just be happy tobe.

That which youare, your true self, you love it, andwhatever youdo, youdo foryour ownhappiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Sincetime immemorial you loved yourself, but neverwisely. Use your body andmindwisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your ownself, love your selfabsolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless youhave re-alized themas onewith yourself, you cannot love them. Dont pretend to bewhatyou are not, dont refuse to bewhat you are. Your love of others is the result ofself-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine.

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Whenyouknow beyondall doubting that the same life flows throughall that isand youare that life, youwill love all naturally and spontaneously. Whenyourealize the depthand fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every livingbeing and the entire universe are included in your affection. (36)

References

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pp. 111-112.(13) Namgyal Rinpoche The Pathof Victory (Boise, Idaho: The OpenPath, 1980), p. 14.(14) JosephGoldstein and Jack Kornfield Seeking theHeart of Wisdom (Boston: Shambhala,

1987), pp. 159-160.(15) ChgyamTrungpa Cutting ThroughSpiritualMaterialism (Berkeley: Shambhala, 1973),

p. 101.(16) Afzal Iqbal The Life andWork of JalaluddinRumi (London: OctagonPress, 1983),

pp. 278-279.(17) Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now (Vancouver: Namaste Publishing, 1997), pp. 130-131.(18) Scott Morrison Openand Innocent (Asheville, NorthCarolina: 21st Century Renaissance,

2000), p. 67.(19) Karl Renz TheMythof Enlightenment (Carlsbad, California: Inner Directions, 2005),

pp. 88-89.(20) Sri NisargadattaMaharaj I AmThat (Durham, NorthCarolina: AcornPress, 1982), p. 216.(21) Sri NisargadattaMaharaj I AmThat (Durham, NorthCarolina: AcornPress, 1982), p. 420.(22) Fritz Peters BoyhoodwithGurdjieff (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964), pp. 166-167.(23) Sri NisargadattaMaharaj TheNectar of the Lords Feet (Dorset, England: Element Books,

1987), p. 124.(24) JosephGoldstein Insight Meditation (Boston: Shambhala, 2003), p. 143.(25) ChgyamTrungpa Cutting ThroughSpiritualMaterialism (Berkeley: Shambhala, 1973),

p. 103.(26) ChgyamTrungpa Meditation inAction (Berkeley: Shambhala, 1969), p. 36.(27) ByronKatie A ThousandNames for Joy (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007), p. 76.

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(28) Jack Kornfield TheBuddha is Still Teaching (Boston: Shambhala, 2010), p. 58.(29) Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now (Vancouver: Namaste Publishing, 1997), pp. 163-164.(30) Bhante HenepolaGunaratana Mindfulness inPlain English (Boston: WisdomPublications,

2002), p. 195.(31) Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now (Vancouver: Namaste Publishing, 1997), pp. 165-166.(32) PemaChdrn The Places That Scare You (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), p. 42.(33) Tarthang Tulku HiddenMindof Freedom (Berkeley: DharmaPublishing, 1981), pp. 58-59.(34) Jean Klein BeyondKnowledge (Santa Barbara: ThirdMillenniumPublications, 1994),

pp. 47-48.(35) Jean Klein BeyondKnowledge (Santa Barbara: ThirdMillenniumPublications, 1994),

pp. 33-34.(36) Sri NisargadattaMaharaj I AmThat (Durham, NorthCarolina: AcornPress, 1982), p. 213.