Practicing compassion

I'd like to add this as it directly relates to the topic at hand and has some very salient and profound insights on life.

Excerpted from page 48/49 of: Conversations with God
· an uncommon dialogue ·
book 1
Neale Donald Walsch
1992 -1994
[link to www.humanitysteam.ru]
"Well, your soul seeks the highest feeling. It seeks to experience—to be—perfect love.
It is perfect love—and it knows this. Yet it wishes to do more than know it. It wishes to be it in
its experience.
Of course you are seeking to be God! What else did you think you were up to?
I don’t know. I’m not sure. I guess I just never thought of it that way. There just seems to be
something vaguely blasphemous about that.
Isn’t it interesting that you find nothing blasphemous about seeking to be like the devil, but
seeking to be like God offends you— Now wait minute! Who’s seeking to be like the devil?
You are! You all are! You’ve even created religions that tell you that you are born in sin—that
you are sinners at birth—in order to convince yourselves of your own evil. Yet if I told you you
are born of God—that you are pure Gods and Goddesses at birth—pure love—you would
reject me.
All your life you have spent convincing yourself that you are bad. Not only that you are bad,
but that the things you want are bad. Sex is bad, money is bad, joy is bad, power is bad,
having a lot is bad—a lot of anything. Some of your religions have even got you believing that
dancing is bad, music is bad, celebrating life is bad. Soon you’ll agree that smiling is bad, laughing is bad, loving is bad.
No, no, my friend, you may not be very clear about many things, but about one thing you are
clear: you, and most of what you desire, are bad. Having made this judgment about yourself,
you have decided that your job is to get better.
It’s okay, mind you. It’s the same destination in any event—it’s just that there’s a faster way,
a shorter route, a quicker path.
Which is?
Acceptance of Who and What You Are right now—and demonstration of that.
This is what Jesus did. It is the path of the Buddha, the way of Krishna, the walk of every
Master who has appeared on the planet.
And every Master has likewise had the same message: What I am, you are. What I can do,
you can do. These things, and more, shall you also do.
Yet you have not listened. You have chosen instead the far more difficult path of one who
thinks he is the devil, one who imagines he is evil.
You say it is difficult to walk the path of Christ, to follow the teachings of the Buddha, to hold
the light of Krishna, to be a Master. Yet I tell you this: it is far more difficult to deny Who You
Are than to accept it.
You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy
and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need,
a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You
are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. You
are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself as these things.
Choose now to know yourself as these things always."-God

I can't criticize you ac.

This life is an experience with many contradictions, our own enquiry is essential.

After examination of external appearances and phenomenon attention turns inward precisely because the answers are not contained in the rational thinking mind.

Yes there are very funny threads and posters, I have belly laughed on this site til I've cried, I have also cried with deep compassion for posters of great tragedy.

And then there is tragicomedy.


Ultimately,
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

Last Edited by Lost Angel on 06/20/2013 09:26 AM

Love and fear cannot exist at the same time together in your mind.

Light dispels dark.

After examination of external appearances and phenomenon attention turns inward precisely because the answers are not contained in the rational thinking mind

and this conclusion and the typoing thereof was reached by the non rational mind

lol

Yes, I do not draw line anywhere, when I say all sentient beings, I mean to all sentient beings. There is in this universe absolute conflict between good and evil that can never be harmonized. As much there is evil in others, there is evil in you too. You see we are universe, and there is in this universe absolute conflict between good and evil, therefore there is evil also in one self. Thing is to accept our own darkside. So by accepting my own darkside, it allows me to understand others darkside and be compassionate also towards those people.

The ego tunnel.

Non dualism.

KISS

wonderful thread, thank you, we need those.


"Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality."

- Earl Nightingale

Good post!!!

Never really thought about it. Always thought pity was what you felt for those you know ( might be the reason for smugness) and those who had brought on their own situation, like abused women and the homeless. (Only because I' be been both and found out the answer was in me.)

Always thought compassion was what you felt for those you don't know like old dogs, old horses, old people.

Compassion makes me want to take action, whereas pity makes me want to lecture.

I concur, Sabali. Great thread, and many interesting responses. I believe the better we know ourselves and accept ourselves, the better we can understand the world around us and come to terms with it.

Gnothi Seauton.

Had compassion for someone who turned out to be a sociopath.

What a mistake that was.

The experience from said episode was that compassion from others was nowhere to be found after being trashed by this person.

thank you SABALI,

gave me lots to think about today.

Again you have to understand difference between self and ego. It was his ego that was sociopath, not his true nature, our true nature is LOVE. But many of us blocks our true nature and allows ego to live in us, and telling us lies that it is what we really are.

Like I said, in this kind of situation, is to recognize your own darkside. You have the darkside too. Like you have the lightside. And so does this person who is sociopath, his darkside is just on surface and his lightside is deeply hidden.

Yes.

I know someone very special to me who is now dead because of compassion and forgiveness for two psychopaths in her life.

Her co worker and her husband.

I believe, knowing my dear friend as I did, she would still want to have compassion and forgiveness even though it took her life.

I'm sorry to hear that. And yes if compassion is natural to ones nature then it continues no matter what. And as far as these creatures having a buried light side,well I don't believe it. The best they have is a robotic mimicry of such that has no true life vivifying it.

I have no compassion for that bitch that let her boy friend rape her 4 month old infant to death. Those monsters do not deserve any compassion!

I hear you and would tend to agree until you remember those 'monsters' are another yourself from and with a different perspective. To judge/condemn another is only doing it to yourself. Same with denying compassion.

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Matthew 7:12

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Colossians 3:12 E

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

Galatians 6:2

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.



thanks for post

I love this quote.
And OP thank you for this thread!

Peace and love

I like to contribute this powerful song from The Moody
Blues. It always makes me cry and realize I have the give more love and show more (unconditional) compassion, that I'm also lost in a lost world...



Love will find them in the end...

Well some theorized the sociopaths, the narcissists, are soulless beings without the lightside or the higher selves. Some see it as having their lightside buried deep within. Anyone having enough experiential knowledge, not theoretical knowledge, to give insight on this?

At the rhetorical level or idealized world, it's easy to talk about compassion. but in a real life, sometimes we've got to make hard decision like when facing a narcissist or perhaps a suicide bomber, what's the best thing to do? Blind or wisdom-less compassion to the sociopath might get us and our dearest family destroyed or even killed which means, compassion to the criminal might prevent compassion to the innocents that might be destroyed. How to solve the problem? Focusing onto our own darkside might be a suggested solution but it lack practical value meaning we might not be able to focus on our own darkside if we are a dead victim of the sociopath and the sociopath after destroying us, as a natural predator, will continue to vampirize others. So what's the best practice compassion in such a situation?

for Compassion
Godspeed