We don’t just judge people, we judge life!!!
An act of arrogance
Judging is simply our attempt to create hierarchies of better than and less than, superior to and inferior to – and to define worth to everything and everyone we meet. Criticalness is the insidious urge to be right, to be better or superior. Our binary view of the world around us necessitates that we be either right or wrong, so we tend to judge and criticize.
And the need/attempt to control
Criticalness and judgment are the extended actions of fear and doubt. Judgment is the ego’s attempt to condemn others to the hell we live in by believing our own thoughts and perceptions. Acting from kindness and compassion is, in fact, a service that requires not responding from those self-absorbed places.
Trying to impose your will – the desperate act of ego
Confining others in the chains of judgment, we are perpetually expressing the constricted consciousness of ego. Compassion, a genuine heart-felt concern for others, arises from a certain degree of ego-less understanding. When you love someone without any ego or self-interest you can have genuine compassion and a noble heart. The highest compassion is completely free of ego.
Ultimately, we judge out of our own pain and suffering — in an attempt to mask our self-absorbed consciousness. We stop when we discover the inherent joy of fullness inside.
The highest act of compassion is unconditional love
Compassion for the suffering of separation is the expressed action that comes from the joy of knowing the One Self. When we have freed ourself from the bondage of individuality, compassion and kindness are the natural and expressed actions of freedom. The disciplined action of sādhana is to become compassionate and kind in order find, enter into, and become established in the One Self.
True compassion is Love radiating from the Heart
This is the resonance of openness and caring, free from the filteringof limited, self-focused emotion. Love travels with the speed of light/śakti to nourish those who are in need of solace.
Compassion for the pain often experienced in worldly life
Compassion is one’s altruistic nature, exclusively turned to others. Given the fullness from which it emanates, it cannot be selfish. Compassion coming from love is the caring acknowledgment of pain in others, given without condition, in the face of the difficult conditions others are facing.
True giving is compassion in action, replete with the very essence people in difficult situations need the most — love and gentle support.
Everything that is given in form is pervaded by the resonance of the highest intention. Then, there is a two-fold gift: that which sustains worldly life and that which provides sustenance for the spirit.
The purification of indifference that allows for compassion and lovingkindness to flourish in our hearts happens in the fire of sādhana. Through the internalization of breath, life force, and awareness, the self-absorbed focus of limited identity is consumed in the central channel, allowing us to live from the Heart, where compassion and loving-kindness are ever-present.
The emergent features of a person with compassion & loving-kindness
At the heart of compassion is a genuine concern, a true willingness to give anything of ourselves that is necessary to alleviate the pain/suffering of others.
To be genuinely concerned about the other person's needs.
To be willing to sacrifice your own needs in order to serve the needs of others.
Might you recognize compassion as selfless service?
SGG || Verse 11 & 110|
The embodied one becomes the Absolute, purified of the impact of bad karma, through doing seva at the feet of Śrī-Guru...Through the compassionate grace of the Guru principle one perceives the delight inherent in one’s own being/true nature. [In turn, one sees that sameness in others and offers love to all — the highest act of compassion].
Imagine that the Goddess Kuṇḍalinī stands before you. In front of Her is a fire, its flames rising in jeweled colors. Imagine yourself before Her. Imagine your negative tendencies/misunderstandings as a cloak that covers your body/mind/awareness causing you to judge/act from a limited place. Peel away the cloak, and throw it into the fire. Watch it dissolve in the flames, ash rising and sweeping over you, leaving a residue of insight and understanding.
From that residue of insight and understanding look deeper to see an even more thinly-veiled cloak, which even further obscures your knowing your true Self, in which judgment has no place. Peel away the cloak, and throw it into the fire. Watch it dissolve in the flames, ash rising and sweeping over you, leaving a more luminous residue of insight and understanding. Now surrender that insight and understanding and see the profoundly subtle veiled cloak, the willfulness arising from judgment. Peel away the cloak, and throw it into the fire of awareness. Watch it dissolve in the flames, ash rising & sweeping over you, leaving a direct experience of your own joy of being: The place in which true compassion and kindness exists.
Compassion/Loving-Kindness
After doing the meditation of change, tune in to the felt-sense & living essence of Compassion & Loving-Kindness
Make a note describing the resonance of the experience. Wordsmith it to make sure it is a clear and concise articulation of the moment.
Create a flash card to remind you to find, enter into, and establish yourself there, moment by moment. Share your insight on the form you will receive in about a week.
NOTE TO SELF — COMPASSION AND KINDNESS