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Compassion Compilation (view source)
Revision as of 09:34, 16 February 2023
, 09:34, 16 February 2023→More on Compassion
=What is Compassion?=
Compassion is the equivalent of ''miséricorde'' [mercylong, narrow knife]. It is a pity full of strength and kindness, a pity that pardons and makes amends, forgets all offences and wants always what is best for everyone.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/31-march-1933#p2</ref>
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...the state of perfect, integral, universal love, which is the very essence of compassion and the most perfect expression of the Grace which wipes out the consequences of all error and all ignorance. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p3</ref>
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Compassion is something different. It comes from Above. It is a state of sympathy for the suffering of man and the suffering that is on earth and there is an idea of helping it as far as one can, whenever one can in his own way. It is not like pity. It is like the Gods who look upon human suffering from above, unmoved. That compassion can also destroy and it destroys with compassion, – Daya, – as Durga does the Rakshasas, the hostile beings. There can be no pity there. Many times the Rakshasa may come and ask you to save him, he may even ask you to transform him...If you try that, all the power goes to the Rakshasa and you may become powerless. When these vital beings incarnate in men then the compassion would not prevent you from killing them. [AB Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo]<ref>https://motherandsriaurobindo.in/#/home4/vbamba/public_html/newsaa.com/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Purani,%20A.%20B./-01%20English/Evening%20Talks%20with%20Sri%20Aurobindo_Second%20Series/-03_Non%20Violence.htm</ref>
==A Virtue of Psychic Being==
=Limitation on the Path to Compassion=
As always, the mind, when insufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature, whose laws, so overpowering in their half-conscious mechanism, it does not fully understand. When the mind awakens to the awareness of the first psychic movements, it distorts them in its ignorance and changes compassion into pity or at best into charity, and gratitude into the wish to repay, followed, little by little, by the capacity to recognise and admire.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/transcripts-of-experiences#p3</ref>
If one thought a little more of this aspect of the problem, perhaps one would have less need to insist on the necessity of returning love for hatred, because if the human heart responded in all sincerity to the Love that is being poured into it with the spontaneous gratitude of a love which understands and appreciates, then things would change quickly in the world. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p31,p32</ref>
=Compassion in SuperhumanSuperman=
…it may be useful to say what the superman will certainly not be, so as to clear away certain misunderstandings. For example, I have read somewhere that the superhuman race would be fundamentally cruel and insensitive; since it is above suffering, it will attach no importance to the suffering of others and will take it as a sign of their imperfection and inferiority. No doubt, those who think in this way are judging the relations between superman and man from the manner in which man behaves towards his lesser brethren, the animals. But such behaviour, far from being a proof of superiority, is a sure sign of unconsciousness and stupidity. This is shown by the fact that as soon as man rises to a little higher level, he begins to feel compassion towards animals and seeks to improve their lot. Yet there is an element of truth in the conception of the unfeeling superman: it is this, that the higher race will not feel the kind of egoistic, weak and sentimental pity which men call charity. This pity, which does more harm than good, will be replaced by a strong and enlightened compassion whose only purpose will be to provide a true remedy to suffering, not to perpetuate it…
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Can there be any greater misfortune than to live without knowing the Supreme Lord? And yet this almost universal ill rarely excites any pity. Because one who knows that he is suffering from it, also knows that the cure depends on him alone—for the Lord's compassion is infinite.
[Based on Aphorisms 529 and 530 -
529—Self-pity is always born of self-love; but pity for others is not always born of love for its object. It is sometimes a self-regarding shrinking from the sight of pain; sometimes the rich man's contemptuous dole to the pauper. Develop rather God's divine compassion than human pity.
Two things you must never forget: Sri Aurobindo's compassion and the Mother's love, and it is with these two things that you will go on fighting steadily, patiently, until the enemies are definitively routed and the Victory is won for ever.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/will-to-conquer-illness#p7</ref></center>
'''Content curated by Tushar'''