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 Compassion is the equivalent of ''miséricorde (knife)'' [mercy]. 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.

...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. <centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p3</centerref>

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 essential psychic virtueidea of helping it as far as one can, whenever one can in his own way. It is not like pity. It appears in 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 consciousness only when power goes to the psychic being takes part Rakshasa and you may become powerless. When these vital beings incarnate in active lifemen then the compassion would not prevent you from killing them.AB Purani, Evening <ref>httphttps://incarnatewordmotherandsriaurobindo.in/cwm#/home4/vbamba/public_html/newsaa.com/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/15Purani,%20A.%20B./transcripts-of01%20English/Evening%20Talks%20with%20Sri%20Aurobindo_Second%20Series/-experiences#p103_Non%20Violence.htm</ref>==A Virtue of Psychic Being==

It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence—gods or demons, invisible beings and powers—do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/4-november-1958#p18</ref> Love, compassion, kindness, bhakti, Ananda are the nature of the psychic being, because the psychic being is formed from the Divine Consciousness, it is the divine part within you. But the lower parts are not yet accustomed to obey or value the influence and control of the psychic for in men the vital and physical are accustomed to act for themselves and do not care for what the soul wants. When they do care and obey the psychic, that is their conversion—they begin to put on themselves the psychic or divine nature.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-psychic-being#p89</ref>==A Virtue of Psychic BeingDivine Compassion==

It must be said And it is quite evident that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence—gods or demonswith the amplitude and totality of the vision, invisible beings and powers—do not possess what there comes something which is a compassion that understands—not that pity of the superior for the Divine has put into maninferior: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindnessdivine Compassion, which compensate for all his external defectsis the total comprehension that each one is what he must be. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1511/427-november-19581965#p18p46</ref>

According to the law of man the guilty ought to be punished. But there is a law more imperative than the human law. It is the Divine law, the law of compassion and mercy.<centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-ways-of-working-of-the-lord#p22</centerref>

Psychic accepts a spiritual The divine compassion for this ignorant human and animal world and its peoples, the joy and happiness and satisfaction of beauty that comes from the perception of the Divine everywhere. It plunges the nature inward towards its meeting with the immanent Divine in the heart's secret centre and, while that call is there, no reproach of egoism, no mere outward summons of altruism or duty or philanthropy or service will deceive or divert it from its sacred longing and its obedience reaches out not only to the attraction of the Divinity within it. It lifts the being towards a transcendent Ecstasy and one who is ready to shed all the downward pull of the world from its wings in its uprising to reach the One Highest; eaten but it calls down also this transcendent Love and Beatitude to deliver and transform this world of hatred and strife and division and darkness and jarring Ignorance. It opens to a universal Divine Love, a vast compassion, an intense and immense will for the good of allone who eats, for the embrace of the World-Mother enveloping or gathering not only to her children, the divine Passion that has plunged into the night for the redemption of the world from the universal Inconscience. It one who is not attracted or misled by mental imitations or any vital misuse of these great deep-seated Truths of existence; it exposes them with its detecting search-ray and calls down tortured but also the entire truth of Divine Love to heal these malformations, to deliver mental, vital, physical love from their insufficiencies or their perversions and reveal to them their true abounding share of the intimacy and the oneness, the ascending ecstasy and the descending raptureone who tortures. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2314/the-ascent-of-the-sacrificegeneral-i1#p23p5</ref>

Human pity is born of ignorance and weakness; it is the slave of emotional impressions. Divine compassion understands, discerns and saves.<centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-527-528#p1</ref> But then, when that true Compassion of divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things… Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear. There is something in Love in its Origin that is constantly expressed by the intervention of the Grace; a force, a sweetness, something like a vibration of solace, spread everywhere, but which an enlightened consciousness can direct, concentrate on certain points. And that’s just where I saw the true use one could make of thought: thought is used as a channel to carry the vibration from place to place, wherever it’s necessary. This force, this vibration of sweetness is there over the world in a static way, pressing to be received, but it’s an impersonal action, and thought—enlightened thought, surrendered thought, the thought that is nothing more than an instrument, that no longer tries to set things in motion, that is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness—thought is used as an intermediary to make contact, to build a connection and allow this impersonal Force to act wherever it’s necessary, on precise points. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/september-28-1966#p21</ref> ...[inmost being] accepts a spiritual compassion for this ignorant human and animal world and its peoples, the joy and happiness and satisfaction of beauty that comes from the perception of the Divine everywhere. It plunges the nature inward towards its meeting with the immanent Divine in the heart's secret centre and, while that call is there, no reproach of egoism, no mere outward summons of altruism or duty or philanthropy or service will deceive or divert it from its sacred longing and its obedience to the attraction of the Divinity within it. It lifts the being towards a transcendent Ecstasy and is ready to shed all the downward pull of the world from its wings in its uprising to reach the One Highest; but it calls down also this transcendent Love and Beatitude to deliver and transform this world of hatred and strife and division and darkness and jarring Ignorance. It opens to a universal Divine Love, a vast compassion, an intense and immense will for the good of all, for the embrace of the World-Mother enveloping or gathering to her children, the divine Passion that has plunged into the night for the redemption of the world from the universal Inconscience. It is not attracted or misled by mental imitations or any vital misuse of these great deep-seated Truths of existence; it exposes them with its detecting search-ray and calls down the entire truth of Divine Love to heal these malformations, to deliver mental, vital, physical love from their insufficiencies or their perversions and reveal to them their true abounding share of the intimacy and the oneness, the ascending ecstasy and the descending rapture.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-i#p23</ref> There is too a suprarational truth formulating itself in spiritual experience which can observe the play of universal possibility, accept all impartially as the true and natural features and consequences of a world of ignorance and inconscience or admit all with calm and compassion as a part of the divine working, but, while it awaits the awakening of a higher consciousness and knowledge as the sole escape from what presents itself as evil, is ready with help and intervention where that is truly helpful and possible.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-origin-and-remedy-of-falsehood-error-wrong-and-evil#p11</ref> I saw and felt this Compassion working through the meshes of the net, and how the Grace is all-powerful, meaning that the “Law” isn’t an obstacle any longer. I saw this Compassion touching everyone and giving everyone their chance; I understood what he really meant when he said that it “gives everyone their chance”—equally, without the slightest distinction of importance or condition or anything, or of state: exactly the same chance to all. So then, the result of this Compassion was to awaken them to the existence of the Grace, to make them feel that there is in the universe something like the Grace. And with those who aspire and have trust, the Grace acts immediately—it always acts, but with those who have trust it becomes fully effective.All this was so clear, so precise! It really was like a new experience, a revelation. And how Sri Aurobindo was the expression of this Compassion…. It could be seen in his eyes, of course, his eyes were full of Compassion. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/december-7-1966#p4,p5</centerref>

Love, compassion, kindness, bhakti, Ananda A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself acts. There are these three powers: (1) the Cosmic Law of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as many as it can reach through the nature nets of the psychic being, because Law and giving them their chance; and (3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly than the others. The only question is whether there is something behind all the anomalies of life which can respond to the psychic being call and open itself with whatever difficulty till it is formed from ready for the illumination of the Divine Consciousness, Grace—and that something must be not a mental and vital movement but an inner somewhat which can well be seen by the inner eye. If it is there and when it becomes active in front, then the Compassion can act, though the full action of the divine part within you. But Grace may still wait attending the decisive decision or change; for this may be postponed to a future hour, because some portion or element of the lower parts are being may still come between, something that is not yet accustomed ready to obey or value receive.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the influence -divine-grace-and control -guidance#p4</ref>===Divine Disgust===It is a disgust that is full of total compassion.It is something that takes upon itself the psychic for bad vibration in men order to cure others of it. The consequences of a wrong and low movement—instead of throwing it back with cold justice upon the vital and physical are accustomed one who has committed the mistake, it absorbs it, in order to act for themselves transform it within itself, and do not care for what diminishes as far as possible the material consequences of the soul wantsfault committed. When they do care and obey … the old story about Shiva who had a black stain on his neck because he had swallowed all that was bad in the psychicworld, that is their conversion—they begin to put an imaginative way of expressing this divine disgust. It made a black stain on themselves the psychic or divine naturehis neck. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2806/the18-psychicaugust-being1954#p84p26,p28</ref>

==It is from a state of deep compassion that the Divine Compassion==acts in Matter and this deep compassion is translated in Matter precisely by the psychic sorrow.

The other category of suffering, whose initial cause is ...the pain Divine's state of separation created by the adversary, compassion is totally opposite translated in nature: it is the suffering psychic consciousness by a sorrow that comes from divine compassionis not egoistic, the suffering of love a sorrow that feels compassion for is the world's misery, whatever its origin, cause or effect. But this suffering, which is of a purely psychic character, contains no egoism, no self-pity; it is full of peace and strength and power of action, expression of faith in the future and the will for victory; it does not pity but consoles, it does not identify itself identification through sympathy with the ignorant movement in others but cures and illumines ituniversal sorrow...<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1506/526-februarymay-19561954#p4p23,p24</ref>

A state It is obvious that in the purity of Grace its essence, only that which is prepared in perfectly divine can feel the individual often suffering; but partially, momentarily, like flashes of lightning behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind dark clouds of egoism, it appears in all who have a vast and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself actsgenerous heart. There are these three powers: (1) However, most often, in the Cosmic Law of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as many as individual consciousness it can reach through is mixed with that mean and petty self-pity which is the nets cause of the Law depression and giving them their chance; and (3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly than the othersweakness. The only question Nevertheless, when one is whether there vigilant enough to refuse this mixture or at least to reduce it to a minimum, one soon realises that this divine compassion is something behind all the anomalies of life based on a sublime and eternal joy which can respond to alone has the call strength and open itself with whatever difficulty till it is ready for the illumination of power to deliver the Divine Grace—and that something must be not a mental world from its ignorance and vital movement but an inner somewhat which can well be seen by the inner eyemisery.<ref>https://incarnateword. If it is there and when it becomes active in front/cwm/15/5-february-1956#p4, then the p5</ref>=Why is Compassion can act, though Needed?=The compassion seeks to relieve the full action suffering of the Grace may still wait attending the decisive decision or change; for this may be postponed to a future hourall, because some portion whether they deserve it or element of the being may still come between, something that is not yet ready to receive. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2916/the-divine-grace21-anddecember-guidance1966#p4</ref>

When you are a being of justice, truth, harmony, compassion, understanding, of perfect goodwill, this inner attitude, the more sincere and total it is, the more it reacts upon the external circumstances; not that it necessarily diminishes the difficulties of life, but it gives these difficulties a new meaning and that allows you to face them with a new strength and a new wisdom; whereas the man, the human being who follows his impulses, who obeys his desires, who has no time for scruples, who comes to live in complete cynicism, not caring for the effect that his life has upon others or for the more or less harmful consequences of his acts, creates for himself an atmosphere of ugliness, selfishness, conflict and bad will which necessarily acts more and more upon his consciousness and gives a bitterness to his life that in the end becomes a perpetual torment. <centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/niraya-hell#p16</centerref>=How to Cultivate Compassion?=

It You know, human beings always suffer because of egoistic causes, humanly. Even when, for instance... they lose someone they loved, and suffer and weep, it is obvious not over the state of that in person they weep, for most of the time, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they do not know the purity state of its essencethe person, only they cannot even know whether that which person is happy or unhappy, whether he is perfectly divine can feel the suffering; or in peace, but partiallyit is over the sense of separation they themselves experience, momentarilybecause they loved to have that person near them and he has gone. So, like flashes of lightning behind always at the dark clouds root of egoismhuman sorrow there is a turning back upon oneself, more or less conscious, more or less—how to put it? —acknowledged, but it appears in all who have is always that. Even when one weeps over another's misery, there is always a vast and generous heartmixture. HoweverThere is a mixture, but as soon as the psychic gets mingled in sorrow, most oftenthere is an element of "reversed compassion"...which comes into being and, in if one can disentangle the individual consciousness it is mixed with two, concentrate upon that mean , come out of one's ego and petty self-pity unite with this reversed compassion, through this one can come into contact with the great universal Compassion which is the cause something immense, vast, calm, powerful, deep, full of depression perfect peace and weaknessan infinite sweetness. Nevertheless, And this is what I mean when I say that if one is vigilant enough just knows how to refuse this mixture or at least deepen one's sorrow, go right to reduce its very heart, rise beyond the egoistic and personal part and go deeper, one can open the door of a great revelation. That does not mean that you must seek sorrow for sorrow's sake, but when it is there, when it comes upon you, always if you can manage to rise above the egoism of your sorrow—seeing first which is the egoistic part, what it is that makes you suffer, what the egoistic cause of your suffering is, and then rising above that and going beyond, towards something universal, towards a minimumdeep fundamental truth, one soon realises then you enter that this divine compassion infinite Compassion, and there, truly it is based on a sublime psychic door that opens. So, if someone sees me shedding tears, if at that moment one tries to unite completely—you understand, to enter into these tears, melt in them—this can open the door. One can open the door and eternal joy have the full experience, a very exceptional experience, which alone has leaves a very deep mark upon your consciousness. Usually it is never effaced. But if the strength door closes again, if once again you become what you are in your ordinary movements, that still remain somewhere behind and the power you can go back to it in moments of intense concentration; you can go back to deliver the world from its ignorance it and you feel once again that immensity of an infinite sweetness, a great peace, which... understands everything but not intellectually, which has compassion for all things, which can embrace all things and miseryso heal all things. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1506/526-februarymay-19561954#p5p24</ref>

Compassion is an essential psychic virtue. It appears in the consciousness only when the psychic being takes part in active life…It is only when the psychic consciousness is all-powerful in the being that compassion for all that needs help, in whatever domain, and gratitude for all that manifests the divine presence and grace, in whatever form, are expressed in all their original and luminous purity, without mixing compassion with any trace of condescension or gratitude with any sense of inferiority.<centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/transcripts-of-experiences#p1</centerref>==Compassion and Its Practice=====By Transcending Pity===

According to There is a point where all the virtues are united: it is a point that goes beyond the ego. If we take this faithfulness, if we take devotion, take love, the law meaning of man service, all these things, when they are above the egoistic level, they meet, in the guilty ought to be punishedsee that they give themselves and do not expect anything in exchange. And if you climb one step higher, instead of its being done with the idea of duty and abnegation, it is done with an intense joy which carries within itself its own reward, which needs nothing in exchange, for it carries its joy in itself. But there then, for that you must have climbed quite high and must no longer have that turning back upon yourself which, of all things, pulls you down lowest. That kind of... that sympathy, full of self-pity, wherein one cajoles and caresses oneself and says, "Poor me!", that, indeed, is a law more imperative than the human lawsomething terrible, and one does this so constantly, without being aware of it. It is the Divine lawThis turning back upon oneself, the law a kind of degrading self-compassion , in which one tells oneself in a tone so full of pity, "Nobody understands me! No one loves me! No one cares for me as people should!" etc., and mercyone goes on and on. ... And now this is really terrible, it draws you down into a hole immediately.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1406/the-ways-of23-working-of-thejune-lord1954#p22p30</ref>

Sri Aurobindo always reminds us of the fact that the Divine is everywhere and in everything, and asks us to practise a true compassion, as is so beautifully expressed in this aphorism,"Examine thyself without pity, then thou wilt be more charitable and pitiful to others."<centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/relations-with-persons-outside-the-ashram#p2</centerref>

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.  Not pity that bites the heart and weakens the inner members, but a divine masterful and untroubled compassion and helpfulness is the virtue that we should encourage.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-529-530#p1,p2</ref> The passion of pity with its impure elements of physical repulsion and emotional inability to bear the suffering of others has to be rejected and replaced by the higher divine compassion reaches out not only to which sees, understands, accepts the one who burden of others and is eaten but also strong to the one who eatshelp and heal, not only to with self-will and revolt against the suffering in the world and with ignorant accusation of the one who is tortured law of things and their source, but also with light and knowledge and as an instrument of the one who torturesDivine in its emergence.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1423/generalthe-release-from-the-heart-1and-the-mind#p5p7</ref>===By Oneness===

...by our spiritual growth we can become one self with all beings, know them as part of our self, deal with them as if they were our other selves; for then the division is healed, the law of separate self-affirmation leading by itself to affirmation against or at the expense of others is enlarged and liberated by adding to it the law of our self-affirmation for others and our self-finding in their self-finding and self-realisation. It has been made a rule of religious ethics to act in a spirit of universal compassion, to love one's neighbour as oneself, to do to others as one would have them do to us, to feel the joy and grief of others as one's own; but no man living in his ego is able truly and perfectly to do these things, he can only accept them as a demand of his mind, an aspiration of his heart, an effort of his will to live by a high standard and modify by a sincere endeavour his crude ego-nature. It is when others are known and felt intimately as oneself that this ideal can become a natural and spontaneous rule of our living and be realised in practice as in principle. But even oneness with others is not enough by itself, if it is a oneness with their ignorance; for then the law of ignorance will work and error of action and wrong action will survive even if diminished in degree and mellowed in incidence and character. Our oneness with others must be fundamental, not a oneness with their minds, hearts, vital selves, egos,—even though these come to be included in our universalised consciousness,—but a oneness in the soul and spirit, and that can only come by our liberation into soul-awareness and self-knowledge. To be ourselves liberated from ego and realise our true selves is the first necessity; all else can be achieved as a luminous result, a necessary consequence. That is one reason why a spiritual call must be accepted as imperative and take precedence over all other claims, intellectual, ethical, social, that belong to the domain of the Ignorance.<centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-origin-and-remedy-of-falsehood-error-wrong-and-evil#p34</centerref>==Compassion Towards Animals==

Let the divine compassion express itself through you always and in all circumstances''Q. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/general-1#p4</ref>In our yoga, what attitude should we take towards animals?''

''A:'' One can have the true attitude only when one has attained the consciousness of the divine Oneness; meanwhile it is good always to treat animals with respect, love and compassion. <centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/11-june-1935-2#p1,p2</centerref>

There is too a suprarational truth formulating itself in spiritual experience which can observe No wonder that Ojas [A bullock] gave some trouble. These bullocks are quite intelligent enough to feel the play change of universal possibility, accept all impartially as the true people. This new man is not an expert and natural features and consequences moreover he has something of a world brute around him. You will have to look carefully after him, for I do not like his way of ignorance and inconscience or admit all dealing with calm and compassion as a part the bullocks.I object strongly to his way of twisting the divine working, but, while it awaits tails of the awakening beasts. If somebody twisted one of a higher consciousness and knowledge as the sole escape from his limbs like that, what presents itself as evil, is ready with help and intervention where would he say? And I am pretty sure that our bullocks are more sensitive than he is truly helpful and possible. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2116/the3-originseptember-1932#p1,p2</ref>“You don’t know the first thing about animals! Happily you have a peaceful nature, but animals are extremely sensitive to our feelings or sentiments: if you are afraid, they instantly get afraid; if you are angry, they instantly get angry; andif you are gentle, kind, affable, they become gentle, kind, affable.” <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/may-remedy-of-falsehood-error-wrong-and13-evil1967#p11p1</ref>

With weakness ...if one has a certain experience of a particular kind—as one may have an experience of peace, an experience of calm, one may also have an experience of perfect benevolence, an experience of understanding or of compassion—the thing, the experience is as though the consciousness were possessed by one of these movements; and selfishnessso there occurs this thing which seems strange afterwards, but which for the moment is altogether natural—one feels everywhere, however spiritual in their guise everyone, in the whole atmosphere, all around himself and, if the consciousness is vast enough, in the entire earth, exactly the ''same'' peace or the ''same'' compassion or trendthe ''same'' benevolence. And so one can say in all sincerity, he[with a sadhak completely living experience: "The universe is perfect benevolence." If you come out of Integral Yoga] can have no dealings; a divine strength it, naturally this does not apply any longer. But while you are in the experience, it is altogether true—at that time. And then, if you push this, these experiences, farther (and courage this is exactly what happen to people who try to identify themselves consciously with the Divine), when you attain this identification and a divine compassion and helpfulness are have the very stuff consciousness of the Divine in you, instantly you feel that the Divine is everything and everywhere, in all things, that which he would bethere is nothing but the Divine. And people who have had this experience have said this, they are that very nature have said, "But there is only the Divine, all is Divine, the Divine alone exists." Yet, when one comes out of the Divine which experience, if he continues to say it, he would take upon himself as almost tells a robe lie, in the see that this no longer corresponds at all to the state of spiritual light consciousness he is in.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/13-october-1954#p15</ref>=Limitation on the Path to Compassion=As always, the mind, when insufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and beautythe 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/cwsacwm/2315/renunciationtranscripts-of-experiences#p3</ref> =Compassion Through Various Viewpoints= The Greeks had a keen and exceptional sense of beauty, of eurythmy, of harmony in forms and things. But at the same time they had an equally keen sense of men's impotence in the face of an implacable Fate which none could escape. They were haunted by the inflexibility of this Fate, and even their gods seem to have been subject to it. In their mythology and in their legends, one finds little trace of the divine compassion and grace.

We see in the teaching This notion of the Gita how subtle a thing is the freedom from egoism which is demanded. Arjuna is driven to fight by the egoism of strength, the egoism of the Kshatriya; he is turned from the battle by the contrary egoism of weakness, the shrinking, the spirit of disgust, the false pity that overcomes the mind, the nervous being compassion and grace made its appearance in Europe later with the senses,—not that divine compassion which strengthens the arm Christian religion—whereas in Asia and clarifies especially in India it had long before been the knowledgevery essence of Buddha's teaching. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2315/renunciationthe-divines-help-to-man#p9p17,p18</ref>

Reading certain things can be good for Europeans who have a rather thick skin, to arouse in them a feeling of true compassion; but here in India it is not necessary. And it is not good to give an even darker picture of a life that is already dark enough in itself.<centerref>~http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/teaching-french-to-indian-teachers-who-teach-in-french#p2</ref>==Buddha’s Compassion==At the other extreme of consciousness stands the Buddha with his pure and sublime compassion. For him the suffering arising out of life could be abolished by the abolition of life; for life and the world are the outcome of the desire to be, the fruit of ignorance. Abolish desire, eliminate ignorance, and the world will disappear and with it all suffering and misery. In a great effort of spiritual aspiration and silent concentration he elaborated his discipline, one of the most uplifting and the most effective disciplines ever given to those who are eager for liberation.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/helping-humanity#p6</ref> … he manifested something of the power of Shiva: it was the same compassion, the same understanding of all the misery, and the same power which destroys—obviously with the intention of transforming, but destroys rather than constructs. His work does not seem to have been very constructive. It was very necessary to teach men practically not to be egoistic; from that point of view it was very necessary. But in its deeper principle it has not helped very much in the transformation of the earth.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/7-september-1955#p30</ref> "The service of mankind" sounds like a very modern and European conception; it reminds me of some European interpretations of the Gita as merely teaching the disinterested performance of duty or the pronouncement that the whole idea of the Gita is service. The exclusive stress or overstress on mankind or humanity is also European. Mahayanist Buddhism laid stress on compassion, fellow-feeling with all, ''vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam'', just as the Gita speaks of the feeling of oneness with all beings and preoccupation with the good of all beings, ''sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ'', but this does not mean humanity only but all beings and ''vasudhā'' means all earth-life.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/jainism-and-buddhism#p7</ref>==Compassion in the Gita==...the teaching of the Gita springs from an Indian creed and to the Indian mind compassion has always figured as one of the largest elements of the divine nature. The Teacher himself enumerating...the qualities of the godlike nature in man places among them compassion to creatures, gentleness, freedom from wrath and from the desire to slay and do hurt, no less than fearlessness and high spirit and energy. Harshness and hardness and fierceness and a satisfaction in slaying enemies and amassing wealth and unjust enjoyments are Asuric qualities; they come from the violent Titanic nature which denies the Divine in the world and the Divine in man and worships Desire only as its deity. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/the-creed-of-the-aryan-fighter#p2</centerref>

Can there There is a divine compassion which descends to us from on high and for the man whose nature does not possess it, is not cast in its mould, to pretend to 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 superior man, the master-man or the superman is a folly and an insolence, for he alone is suffering from it, also knows that the cure depends on him alone—for superman who most manifests the highest nature of the Lord's Godhead in humanity. This compassion is infiniteobserves with an eye of love and wisdom and calm strength the battle and the struggle, the strength and weakness of man, his virtues and sins, his joy and suffering, his knowledge and his ignorance, his wisdom and his folly, his aspiration and his failure and it enters into it all to help and to heal.[Based on Aphorisms 529 In the saint and 530 -529—Self-pity is always born philanthropist it may cast itself into the mould of a plenitude of self-loveor charity; but pity for others is not always born in the thinker and hero it assumes the largeness and the force of love for its objecta helpful wisdom and strength. It is sometimes a self-regarding shrinking from this compassion in the Aryan fighter, the sight soul of pain; sometimes his chivalry, which will not break the bruised reed, but helps and protects the weak and the oppressed and the rich man's contemptuous dole to wounded and the pauperfallen. Develop rather God's But it is also the divine compassion than human pity.530—Not pity that bites smites down the strong tyrant and the heart confident oppressor, not in wrath and weakens with hatred,—for these are not the high divine qualities, the wrath of God against the sinner, God's hatred of the wicked are the inner membersfables of half-enlightened creeds, but as much a divine masterful fable as the eternal torture of the Hells they have invented,—but, as the old Indian spirituality clearly saw, with as much love and untroubled compassion for the strong Titan erring by his strength and slain for his sins as for the sufferer and helpfulness is the virtue that we should encourageoppressed who have to be saved from his violence and injustice.] <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-529-530#p3</ref>

But such is not the compassion which actuates Arjuna in the rejection of his work and mission. That is not compassion but an impotence full of a weak self-pity, a recoil from the mental suffering which his act must entail on himself,—"I see not what shall thrust from me the sorrow that dries up the senses",—and of all things self-pity is among the most ignoble and un-Aryan of moods. Its pity for others is also a form of self-indulgence; it is the physical shrinking of the nerves from the act of slaughter, the egoistic emotional shrinking of the heart from the destruction of the Dhritarashtrians because they are "one's own people" and without them life will be empty. This pity is a weakness of the mind and senses,—a weakness which may well be beneficial to men of a lower grade of development, who have to be weak because otherwise they will be hard and cruel; for they have to cure the harsher by the gentler forms of sensational egoism, they have to call in Tamas, the debile principle, to help Sattwa, the principle of light, in quelling the strength and excess of their rajasic passions. But this way is not for the developed Aryan man who has to grow not by weakness, but by an ascension from strength to strength. Arjuna is the divine man, the master-man in the making and as such he has been chosen by the gods. <centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/13/the-creed-of-the-aryan-fighter#p3,p4</centerref>==Compassion in People Today==If one considers the life and action and heart of men as they are, one would have every right to be surprised at all the hatred, contempt, or at best, the indifference which are returned for this immensity of Love which the divine Grace pours upon the world, for this immensity of Love which acts upon the world at every second to lead it towards the divine delight and which finds so poor a response in the human heart. But people have compassion only for the wicked, the deficient, the misshapen, for the unsuccessful ones and the failures—truly it is an encouragement to wickedness and failure.

Human pity 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 born of ignorance and weakness; being poured into it is with the slave spontaneous gratitude of emotional impressions. Divine compassion a love which understandsand appreciates, discerns and savesthen things would change quickly in the world.<ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwm/1003/aphorismconjugate-527-528verses#p1p31,p32</ref> =Compassion in Superhuman=…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…

Until the superman can come in person to show man what his true nature is, it might be wise for every human being of goodwill to become conscious of what he can conceive as the most beautiful, the most noble, the truest and purest, the most luminous and best, and to aspire that this conception may be realised in himself for the greatest good of the world and men.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/helping-humanity#p24,p26</ref>=More on Compassion==Divine Disgust===There are some rare individuals, born without a psychic being who are wicked; but they are very rare. For everyone there is always hope; even those who imagine that they are very strong in being wicked, even for them, there is a hope; it can awaken suddenly. But that's not what people think. What people think is; it's when you have no sentimental weakness and vital emotion that people tell you, "You have a dried up heart." But that's their opinion, it's not a truth. A dried up heart would be someone incapable of having any compassion; it is very rare. Even in people who had the reputation of being the most wicked there was always a small corner of their being open to compassion. At times it was ridiculously small, but it was there. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/27-july-1955#p10</ref>

It is With weakness and selfishness, however spiritual in their guise or trend, he[a disgust that is full of total compassion.It is something that takes upon itself the bad vibration in order to cure others of it. The consequences sadhak of Integral Yoga] can have no dealings; a wrong divine strength and low movement—instead of throwing it back with cold justice upon the one who has committed the mistake, it absorbs it, in order to transform it within itself, courage and a divine compassion and diminishes as far as possible helpfulness are the material consequences very stuff of the fault committed. … the old story about Shiva who had a black stain on his neck because that which he had swallowed all would be, they are that was bad in very nature of the world, is an imaginative way Divine which he would take upon himself as a robe of expressing this divine disgust. It made a black stain on his neckspiritual light and beauty. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0623/18-august-1954renunciation#p26p3</ref>

Indeed, a great courage is necessary to go farther; this soul one discovers must be an intrepid warrior soul which does not at all rest satisfied with its own inner joy while comforting itself for the unhappiness of others with the idea that sooner or later everybody will reach that state and that it is good for others to make the same effort that one has made or, at best, that from this state of inner wisdom one can, with "great benevolence" and "deep compassion" help others to reach it, and that when everybody has attained it, well, that will be the end of the world and that's so much the better for those who don't like suffering!<centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/12-november-1958#p8</centerref>

Indeed, you should choose as friends only those who are wiser than yourself, those whose company ennobles you and helps you to master yourself, to progress, to act in a great courage is necessary better way and see more clearly. And finally, the best friend one can have—isn't he the Divine, to go farther; this soul whom one discovers must be an intrepid warrior soul which does not at can say everything, reveal everything? For there indeed is the source of all rest satisfied with its own inner joy while comforting itself for the unhappiness compassion, of others with the idea that sooner or later everybody will reach that state and that all power to efface every error when it is good for others not repeated,to make open the same effort that one has made orroad to true realisation; it is he who can understand all, at bestheal all, that from this state of inner wisdom one canand always help on the path, with "great benevolence" and "deep compassion" help others you not to fail, not to reach itfalter, and that when everybody has attained itnot to fall, wellbut to walk straight to the goal. He is the true friend, that will be the end friend of good and bad days, the world one who can understand, can heal, and that's so much who is always there when you need him. When you call him sincerely, he is always there to guide and uphold you—and to love you in the better for those who don't like suffering! true way.<ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/1213-novembermarch-19581957#p8p13</ref>

'''Beyond Absence of love and fellow-feeling is not necessary for nearness to the Divine; on the contrary, a sense of closeness and oneness with others is a part of the divine consciousness into which the sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness with the Divine. An entire rejection of all relations is indeed the final aim of the Mayavadin, and in the ascetic Yoga an entire loss of all relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world and its living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards liberation, Moksha; but even there, I think, a feeling of oneness and unattached spiritual sympathy for all is at least a penultimate stage, like the Egoism compassion of Sorrow'''the Buddhist, before turning to Moksha or Nirvana. In this Yoga the feeling of unity with others, love, universal joy and Ananda are an essential part of the liberation and perfection which are the aim of the sadhana.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/human-relations-and-the-spiritual-life#p8</ref>

It Whenever somebody is from a state of deep compassion that not just according to the usual pattern, if all the Divine acts parts and activities in Matter him have not the usual balance, if some faculties are more or less missing and some others are exaggerated, the common and easy habit is to declare him "abnormal" and to have done with him after this deep compassion hasty condemnation. When this summary judgment is translated passed by somebody in Matter precisely by a position of power the psychic sorrowconsequences can be disastrous. Such people ought to know what true compassion is, then they would act differently.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0614/26-mayjudging-1954others#p23p10</ref>

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.530—Not pity that bites the heart and weakens the inner members, but a divine masterful and untroubled compassion and helpfulness is the virtue that we should encourage.] <centerref>~https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-529-530#p3</centerref>

The Divine<center>Sri Aurobindo's state of compassion is translated in the psychic consciousness by a sorrow that is not egoistic, a sorrow that is the expression of the identification through sympathy with universal sorrow.)... an experience in which way I say, "I wept... the sweetest tears of my life", because it was not over myself that I wept, you understand. Well, that is it. You know, human beings always suffer because of egoistic causes, humanly. Even when, for instance (I have explained this often), they lose someone they loved, and suffer and weep, it is not over the state of that person they weep, for most of the time, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they do not know the state of the person, they cannot even know whether that person is happy or unhappy, whether he is suffering or in peace, but it is over the see of separation they themselves experience, because they loved to have that person near them and he has gone. So, always at the root of human sorrow there is a turning back upon oneself, more or less conscious, more or less—how to put it? —acknowledgedhelp you, but it some effort is always thatneeded from your side also. Even when one weeps over anotherTwo things you must never forget: Sri Aurobindo's misery, there is always a mixture. There is a mixture, but as soon as the psychic gets mingled in sorrow, there is an element of "reversed compassion" (that's what I was trying to explain a moment ago) which comes into being and, if one can disentangle the two, concentrate upon that, come out of one's ego and unite with this reversed compassion, through this one can come into contact with the great universal Compassion which is something immense, vast, calm, powerful, deep, full of perfect peace and an infinite sweetness. And this is what I mean when I say that if one just knows how to deepen oneMother's sorrow, go right to its very heartlove, rise beyond the egoistic and personal part and go deeper, one can open the door of a great revelation. That does not mean that you must seek sorrow for sorrow's sake, but when it is there, when it comes upon you, always if you can manage to rise above the egoism of your sorrow—seeing first which is the egoistic part, what it is with these two things that makes you suffer, what the egoistic cause of your suffering is, and then rising above that and going beyond, towards something universal, towards a deep fundamental truth, then you enter that infinite Compassion, and there, truly it is a psychic door that opens. So, if someone sees me shedding tears, if at that moment one tries to unite completely—you understandwill go on fighting steadily, to enter into these tearspatiently, melt in them—this can open until the door. One can open the door enemies are definitively routed and have the full experience, a very exceptional experience, which leaves a very deep mark upon your consciousness. Usually it Victory is never effaced. But if the door closes again, if once again you become what you are in your ordinary movements, that still remain somewhere behind and you can go back to it in moments of intense concentration; you can go back to it and you feel once again that immensity of an infinite sweetness, a great peace, which... understands everything but not intellectually, which has compassion won for all things, which can embrace all things and so heal all thingsever. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0615/26will-to-mayconquer-1954illness#p25p7</ref></center>