Meditation and Compassion

 

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Meditation and Compassion

When a flower blooms, it’s fragrance spreads on the winds in all directions, to be carried to the very ends of the earth. But the fundamental thing is that the flower has bloomed. On the spiritual path meditation is a flower and compassion its fragrance.

Within humans there is a potential for flowering – unless and until the inner being of a human flowers and blooms, the fragrance of compassion is not possible. If one meditates, one day, suddenly, one becomes aware of a new phenomenon, absolutely strange - compassion is flowing towards the whole of existence from one’s being; undirected, unaddressed, it is moving to the very ends of existence.

Without meditation, energy remains passion; with meditation, the same energy becomes compassion. Passion and compassion are not two energies, they are one and the same energy. Once it passes through meditation, it is transformed; it becomes qualitatively different. Passion moves downwards, compassion moves upwards; passion moves through desire, compassion moves through desirelessness; passion is an occupation to forget the miseries in which we live, compassion is a celebration, it is a dance of attainment, of fulfillment…we are so fulfilled that we can share. Now there is nothing left to attain!

The same energy that was moving through the dark layers of passion, now moves with light rays upwards, uncontaminated by any desire, uncontaminated by any conditioning. It is uncorrupted by any motivation - hence we call it fragrance. The flower is limited but not the fragrance. The flower has limitations it is rooted somewhere in bondage, but fragrance has no bondage. It simply moves, rides on the winds; it has no moorings in the earth.

Meditation is a flower. It has roots. It exists in us. Once compassion happens, it is not rooted; it simply moves and goes on moving. Many Sages and Satgurus have come and gone but not their compassion. The flower will die sooner or later — it is part of earth and the dust will return unto dust - but the fragrance that has been released will remain forever.

Compassion is not limited to the flower - it comes from the flower but it is not of the flower. It comes through the flower; the flower is just a passage, but it comes really from the beyond. It cannot come without the flower - the flower is a necessary stage - but it does not belong to the flower. Once the flower has bloomed, compassion is released.

Compassion frees us, gives us freedom, but that compassion has to come only through meditation, there is no other way to it. Swamiji say that compassion is a by-product, a consequence. We cannot catch hold of the consequence directly, we have to move; we have to produce the cause, and the effect follows. So, if we really want to understand what compassion is we have to understand what meditation is. Forget all about compassion; it comes on its own accord.

It is necessary understand what meditation is! Compassion can become a criterion as to whether the meditation was right or not. If the meditation has been right, compassion is bound to come - it is natural; it follows like a shadow. If the meditation has been wrong then compassion will not follow.