"If
you keep to a spirit of compassion, of warmth, something automatically will open
your inner door. Through this you'll communicate easier with other people. And
this feeling of warmth creates openness. [...] Then there will be less need to
hide anything and as a result, feelings of fear, lacking self-confidence and insecurity
will disappear by themselves."
-Translated from the back of the Swedish
edition of Dalai Lama's book The Art of Happiness.
Compassion,
in the esoteric sense, is empathy, it is the Open Heart whose Flame shines forth
like rays of the sun. It also means patience, which comes with the calm heart.
Something that is central to many
religious teachings, be it the words of Dalai Lama or Jesus' original words (highly
misunderstood), is compassion and sympathy. To me, these doctrines do have some
validity, at least in an esoteric sense. The problems arise when people make it
exoteric and confuse it with dogmas about being undeservedly forgiving; i.e.,
morals that tend to make you into a doormat for bullies that might come along.
Compassion is more about Understanding, it is a state of mind; it has nothing
to do with your actions. It does, however, have to do with Love, Love being Eros;
that which is felt with your heart. It has to do with the Joyful Nature - Joy
is a manifestation of Being!
A feeling
that is familiar to many people is the warmth of heart that clicks in when you're
touched, sentimental, angry or compassionate. It's a feeling of embracing with
your heart, of shining from within.
In
the occult language, that is not mystical at all when you feel these things, this
is the feeling of your heart chakra merging with your eye chakra in a flow of
kundalini. Doing this renders Understanding, empathy or compassion if you like.
It is direct, not like analysis at all, but it gives you Clarity. It doesn't go
away either really, once you have the Understanding it stays with you. (Unless
your heart closes itself).
Throughout
our lives we are confronted by things. They might be beautiful or they might be
horrible. Healthy people tends to not be drawn towards, or focus their Will
on the uglier parts of our world. But sometimes you're not allowed to choose,
sometimes life might be cruel to you. Jesus, as a religious teacher, said that
you should always confront the horrors in a spirit of compassion and empathy.
What do I say? I agree, because the warmth of heart has a miraculous ability to
keep its yielder untouched by the horrors. Instead of hiding the horrors in an
inner closet, burying them so that they fester and grow and become monsters, confront
them and embrace them in an empathic manner. That gives you power over the horrors
instead of the horrors having power over you and even ruling your feelings. Embracing
them, naming them and facing them, tends to make them vanish in a puff of memory
smoke; they are gone and you are set free to breathe easier.
In
the Dark Doctrines this is known as Innocence, and it is said that Innocence is
the only thing that can look into the Void or Abyss unharmed. And when the Abyss
looks back at you, it's beautiful, not horrific. It reflects back the Innocence.
Studies of babies and children in
abusive surroundings have shown that they are very apt to forgive and meet the
world with trust and kindness despite being let down and mistreated. They are
very consistent in their efforts to establish a life in the sign of Health. Children
use their hearts.
But the person
might get scarred, his heart might close, it gets too tired to let him shine and
tune in to things with that warmth of heart due to repeated, consistent hurt.
Now, for such a person, "compassion" becomes suffering. Occulticly;
the flame does not go above the navel chakra in this type of person, and when
tuning in to things it will be like gazing through the navel chakra instead of
the heart. It is a feeling of unease, worry and disgust in the navel area and
a feeling of emptiness in the chest (heart chakra). A person with strong self-hate
and complexes about himself would surely recognize this description. Those of
you who've felt it will Know what this is.
People
who react with fear, disgust and a sense of threat will use this kind of sight
when they tune in to the things they are reacting to. This kind of sight will
not leave you untouched by the Void. Do not look into the Void in this state.
So in a way, forgiveness (by forgiveness
I mean not reacting with fear, disgust and a sense of threat) is a virtue,
because it disarms the horrors. A girl I know once said: "If suicidal ...
then you're stupid. Life might be shit, but never cease to taste, feel and live
it."
I pretty much agree. Never
close your heart, whatever the horrors it encounters might be. That might be the
hardest thing for a person to do. When you close your heart to stop feeling painful
things, you also stop feeling joy - you begin to feel nothing. The trick is to
face the painful things, get over them, and stop focusing on them. Burying them
unconsciously makes it worse, you unconsciously focus on them without consciously
knowing you do it and they rule and ruin your life. Face them. Name them. Exorcise
them! And embrace life with the Open Heart. Let the Flame burn bright and shine!
There's a darker side to it though:
if you have a closed heart ... feel free to cut your wrists open.
If
I were to end the essay at this point, it would be in a dark, doomsday fashion.
I don't want that. But my suicide sentence serves a purpose. Life has, at least
potentially, very evil sides to it in the personal and practical sense. React
by embracing them with your heart, not by bracing your heart against all things,
because such is the law of Eros, and Eros is the law of a Joyful life.
