Question: What is compassion? How do we get more of it?

Higgins:

Compassion is an emotion in the vibrational range of love and deep appreciation and encompasses the emotion of deep understanding.

Develop compassion by directing your thoughts towards gentle understanding and acceptance of the world around you.

Example: Let’s envision you walking down the street and you see your young neighbor boy kicking a dog. Of course you will want the boy to stop so the dog will not be further harmed. You may even feel angry with the boy for hurting the dog, or angry with the boy’s parents for not preventing this act of cruelty or for  raising a boy who’d kick a dog in the first place.

Viewed with compassion this is what you see: You see a boy, a beautiful being of light and grace whose life experience has thrown him so off-balance and out of synch with the expression of his Truth that he would (or even could) be drawn to harm another living being.

When the situation is viewed this way an entirely different emotion, the emotion of compassion, rises within followed by an entirely different solution for obviously a beautiful being of light whose life experience has thrown him off-balance will not benefit from an angry word nor from a spanking.

This next aspect is crucial: What you do next helps to draw you into expression of your Truth.

Do you now gently draw this boy into your life experience and by the grace of your expression of Truth show him another option for living? And if so, how do you choose to do that? Do you talk with him and his parents, perhaps offer to spend 15 minutes with him every day after school teaching him how to train his dog? Or perhaps you simply distract him for the moment and invite him and the dog along on your walk?

How you respond to each and every moment of life directs your future so if you respond to this in alarm or in anger no good is directed into your future. Respond with compassion and warmth and welcome will be nurtured in your now and directed into your future.

Received April 7, 2012 at Everett, Washington