The Tricky Thing About Compassion
Dear friend,
It’s thankfully relatively rare to meet a person who cannot empathise with any living being. More common is the state of consciousness where we might feel compassion for an in-group and dehumanise an out-group.
Here’s a trope as way of an example.
The organised crime boss who would take a bullet for their child, but will take the life of someone else’s loved one if it’s deemed necessary in the pursuit of influence, money and power.
Maybe in the name of respect.
Or the soldier who will lay down their life to save one of their own.
You get the picture.
When you’re in it, this state of consciousness is seen as normal.
When you move out of it, the world looks different.
It’s even trickier than that though.
When you’ve widened your in-group to include all of life, there are going to be individuals and groups who it is hard to have compassion for.
When Chiara and me were visiting a friend in the Italian Senate, we rubbed shoulders with fascists. Powerfully built, with a deadly vibe. I got so flummoxed I hit by head on a crystal lamp in the senate dining room. A crystal fell from the lamp and crashed to the floor. Every head turned to look. I blushed, but it broke up the energy in the place.
I knew that people in that room, in their blue suits, are using their influence to demand that children be left to drown in the waters of the Mediterranean sea.
How can we have compassion for people who cause harm to others?
What about the political leaders who are testing weapons on civilian populations? The men and women responsible for deliberately and systematically starving people to death, while they surround themselves with luxury, surely there must be exceptions to our compassion?
If we make exceptions then we’ve fallen into the old consciousness which lies at the root of the problem.
In-groups and out-groups.
It’s natural to be appalled by monstrous behaviour.
But the tricky thing is that we are not separate from one another.
All of life is One.
In this consciousness there are no enemies.
There are people who cause suffering and power ought not to be in their hands. It would be better for them if they were to be jailed.
But compassion extends to all beings, even to them. The one’s who have made monsters of themselves.
That’s tricky.
But necessary for peace to be complete.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey