Compassion vs. Pity

Soul Speak

“One way to sneak the Soul in past the Ego is through compassion. Not pity, but compassion: the genuine wish for the suffering of others to cease. When it can't worry about itself, the Ego becomes powerless to feed its own fears.”

                                              Ram Dass

I saw homeless people for the first time when I lived in New York City in the 1970's. I'm sure that they existed in the little mountain town where I grew up, but I was not aware of them. When I walked downtown to one particular butcher shop I liked on Third and Seventy-Sixth, I passed old men, bundled up in everything they could get their hands on, with feet wrapped in thick layers of newspaper and tied with scraps of rope. They would be standing, or lying, on the steam vents in the sidewalks, and smelled as though they'd never seen the inside of a shower. Some mumbled to themselves, or to folks who were invisible to me. They panhandled, and would sometimes be aggressive about it, or make a scene by cursing at anyone who passed with out dropping money into their pan. I pitied them. I always felt torn about whether to cross the street to avoid them, or to put some money into the can to assuage my own guilt. Most New Yorkers didn't appear to suffer the same pangs of conscience that I did. The sight of poor beggars was just part of their landscape. They walked right by without a glance.

Pity and Compassion are not the same thing. Pity makes you clinch and move away; it activates the Ego to self-defend. Compassion propels you forward, toward the one in need. It is one of the few emotions that slips right past the Ego and disarms it completely. It is compassion that causes ordinary people to run into burning buildings because they see a child on the second floor. Compassion motivates us to work with folks who are homeless in the shelters and free clinics around this country; to travel long distances to work in areas devastated by storms and floods. It is the sense of “there but for the grace of God go I.” Compassion is an act of love; pity is an act of fear.

When you feel the tug of compassion, you know that Soul is involved. And when the Soul is at work, beautiful things happen. We understand, at least for a short time, our connections to all beings, however humbled they may be by life's circumstances. While pity diminishes you, compassion fills you up. It's a winning situation all around.

                                                   In the spirit,

                                                      Jane