Compassion is Everything

For many spiritual leaders and groups compassion is a feeling often referred to and an act of love towards other human beings.  Compassion is in fact at the very core of other acts of love like acceptance and kindness.  If we are compassionate then we are kind.  If we are compassionate then we treat others fairly and with respect.  Compassion is an all encompassing feeling and action that helps us to connect with others in a way that is open and without judgement.  

There are many people who claim to be doing good things.  They think they are being compassionate when they feel sorry for others or look down on them making statements like "poor thing" or "she is a train wreck".  In fact these are people who lack compassion and are more judgemental than caring or kind.  They disguise their prejudice and their evaluations of others with the notion that everyone else is lacking.  Compassionate people are ones who don't judge others and honor others as they are and for who they are regardless of their status, financial or emotional place.  

We assume that people who are nurses or teachers that these people must be compassionate.  In fact there are many important professions like these that attract people who are not compassionate at all.  It attracts people who want to feel powerful and who look down on others as much as it attracts good people who are genuinely compassionate at their core.  Although teachers are in a very important position with the power to raise spirits or not some are not very compassionate nor do they feel a responsibility to be.  Nurses are also in a position to help patients heal yet there are some who have literally used their skills to kill patients because they decided to be in this profession so as to be in a position of power, the kind of power that they may not have had over their own lives.  While police officers are suppose to be compassionate this is yet another profession that attracts men and women who want to carry a gun and feel powerful over others.  Rather than to protect the citizens there are some police officers who do very little to protect and in fact are irritated when situations come up where they should be compassionate but instead react with anger.  Compassion is not a given in any profession that alleges to care for the public or to teach our children.  

In our world we constantly hire people for jobs with the elderly or other professions where compassion is key that are not qualified because they are struggling with their own self-esteem.  We hire them without asking them questions that will at least require them to share their heart felt feelings about human kind or about children.  We place people in a classroom with small children without asking them why they love children or how they feel children learn best.  For this reason we have teachers in classrooms with second graders who lack compassion because we did not screen that person enough.  Compassion is key in many professions yet we do not teach it in college or at the very least talk about the importance of putting our hearts into what we do.  We simply accept the notion that our feelings can be separated completely from our work as service professionals.  

There is a school in Chicago where the day starts with meditation.  The school is referred to as "The  Peace School".  The day starts with meditation and the premise of the school is to create peace, be in peace, behave with peace and believe in peace.  This for me is compassionate and demonstrates that we can include compassion in the way that we educate our kids.  It is a great example of how feelings can be openly addressed in the classroom and how we can promote compassion in our world.  We can do this and we can create a world that is kind and accepting of others by teaching it, promoting it and including it in the system of education.  

Yes, compassion is everything.  Without compassion we lack the feeling required to love others as they are and to love ourselves as we are.  Compassion is everything because from compassion there is kindness and a feeling of being responsible for the state of our world.  We may not learn to be compassionate and it may never be emphasized in school but we can begin a life of compassion today.  We can start today to be kind and accepting of others around us who we may have not noticed.  We can begin to be less judging towards the people we work with.  Yes, compassion is everything.