Compassion and Wisdom

 

Compassion and Wisdom

Both compassion and wisdom are a very fundamental part of our ancient culture. These are intrinsically interlinked and perform best in tandem. We will try and understand both individually and then in tandem.

For some, compassion comes naturally and to some it is not even a part of their personality. Compassion can also be called love, caring or in Buddhism it is called bodhichitta – these all mean the same thing. But - there is always a but isn’t it! It all comes down to practicing it – whether you put others before yourself in actions, speech and thought. Compassion can generally be awakened and you can achieve its understanding - if it is not already an inherent part of your personality - through meditation. But no matter how much you speak about compassion and how good it sounds it really boils down to practicing it. And no one understands this as well as you do. For doing this you need the wisdom to look inwards and to actually see who you are, what kind of a person you are!

Wisdom is something that comes to us from deep within our consciousness, all other ‘knowledge’ which we acquire through school and university is not knowledge but information which we use in the material world. Wisdom requires us to work with our inner self, in order to act in accordance with our inherent goodness. And when we come face to face with problems, obstacles or difficulties we can turn them to our advantage to develop more inspiration, because if we sincerely value kindness and caring, that belief itself will give us the courage to surpass such obstacles or difficulties. Wisdom, basically means to use such obstacles in this way to find solutions, else wisdom becomes a museum piece and we just end up gathering philosophies, logics and teachings just like people who collect artifacts!

To reach a state where compassion and wisdom are interlinked to form a whole one needs to completely get rid of the ‘I’- factor – the ego. Through meditation we finally break out of the illusion of life which we ourselves create and its dream-like nature. If we then can let go of our attachment to that illusion, we will be free from pain, free from our own expectations, and free from our own hope and fear. Once you achieve that level of awareness you get the wisdom to use your compassion selflessly for the benefit of humanity. The ‘I’ sense dissolves into nothingness and what remains is a feeling of universal love and brotherhood with the wisdom and compassion to apply in one’s day to day life. So, if we want compassion and wisdom to be part of our life then meditating and losing one’s I-sense with the passage of time becomes a given. Stay focused, meditate and achieve that level of awareness which is called moksha, then compassion and wisdom become constants in your life.

Link to healthy living:  https://bit.ly/3hc2ECe