Compassion Does Not Weep with the Other; Compassion Cleanses the Other
Questioner: Acharya Ji, today I was reading about brain and conditioning. Our brain is affected by experiences all the time, and these experiences put the brain in a certain form and cause deformities also.
I have some memories about some people that do not allow me to feel free. I feel a certain uneasiness when I think about them. What is kṣamā or forgiveness? What is the dayā or compassion? Kindly show me some light on this.
Acharya Prashant: Forgiveness is to not have the need to forgive. As long as there is a need to forgive, it means you are still sticking to the small things in the brain; hurts, distortions—you are still talking about those little things. You feel offended. Because you feel offended, so the question of forgiving the other person arises: “Should I forgive, should I not forgive?”
Real forgiveness is when you have gone beyond the little things of the brain and have totally forgotten the hurt. That which you are calling as permanent distortion of the brain is nothing but the attachment of ‘I’-self to all the little taints. The distortion does not just stay on; the distortion stays on because you get attached to it.
It’s like something staining your clothes or your skin. Do you know how the stain happens? Something in the cloth reacts with the spoiling agent, the dirt; actually, a friendship happens. If I put some grease on this kurta—the grease is different from the kurta, they are two different entities—how does it happen that grease meets the kurta, and then the grease doesn’t come off? How do the two become one? The two become one because a bond develops; it’s a chemical bond. Actually, chemistry takes place. They become brother and sister, or friends, or mother and son, or husband and wife. That’s how the cloth gets distorted. That’s how the brain gets distorted.
The brain develops a friendship with nonsense of the past, a chemical bond develops. On one side of the chemical bond, is the memory of the past. Who is on the other side of the bond? You, the ‘I’. The ‘I’ is getting bonded with, attached with that memory. The ‘I’ has developed a definition with respect to that memory. So, now the memory will gain life; it will become a permanent taint on the brain. Otherwise, the memory will just wither down, fall off, go away.
If some totally non-reactive material comes to this shirt, would the cloth still get stained? No, because there will be no reaction. Putting it in a more exact way, if any material, whether reactive or nonreactive, comes to a cloth that is made of a non-reactive material, would the cloth ever get stained? If my kurta is made of a material that cannot react, will the kurta ever get dirtied or spoiled? No, because there can never be any reaction. This kurta is never going to get attached. It doesn’t react; it has no need for company; it does not form any bond with anything.
You have formed bonds with all the little things here and there, past, future, wherever. How to get rid of those bonds? Let’s go back to chemistry. Tell me, how does the soap function? Because the bond between the cloth and the dirt is there. Now, how does the soap function? Soap comes and offers a reaction and energy stronger than the energy between the cloth and the dirt.
So, the cloth says, “Eh! I do not want the dirt, where is the soap?” The dirt also says the same thing—depends on the type of soap, there are many kinds of soaps—the dirt also says the same thing: “Better than being with the cloth, I want to be with the soap.” So, the bond between the cloth and the dirt is broken.
Spirituality is disruptive. Spirituality definitely implies breaking of bonds. What else is freedom? Breaking of bondages. When you address it fondly, then you call it a bond. When you look at it really, then you call it a bondage. They are the same.
So, don’t worry about the reaction between the cloth and the dirt; that reaction has already happened, the bond is there. Now you have to bring in the soap and the water. Don’t talk too much about the dirt; now, move towards the soap. Remember the definition of the soap: something so important, so reactive, so full of energy that it disrupts the existing and ongoing chemistry. Your ongoing chemistries have to be disrupted; your existing patterns have to be broken with something that has higher energy than your current patterns. That is the only way. That is real forgiveness—the stain itself is gone.
In general, when we say forgiveness, what do we mean? We mean, “The stain is there, and I forgive you for staining me.” That is very bad kind of forgiveness. You are telling him, “You know, the stain is there but I forgive you.” Real forgiveness is when the stain itself is gone. Now the fellow may come to you and say, “Please forgive me!” and you will say, “For what? The stain itself is not there, there is no problem. You haven’t committed any crime. Maybe you tried to hurt me. I didn’t get hurt, so there is no question of forgiveness.”
Similarly, you have asked what is dayā or compassion. First of all, compassion is not dayā ; compassion is karuṇā . Dayā is mercy; very, very different. I have spoken a lot about it. What is, then, compassion? Compassion is to see that people are needlessly walking around in spoilt kurtas. Compassion is to become a soap seller.
The fellow comes to you saying, “Ah! My cloth is spoiled forever, forever!” and he is weeping, “My fond kurta, my fond kurta, gone, gone, totally gone! All is gone! It’s gone!” And he is weeping buckets, and you know that you have the soap in your pocket. So, with the mighty swag, you are looking at the fellow and saying, “Needlessly weeping. Now, you, come over! Just hand over the cloth to me.”
That’s compassion: not to become a participant in the other’s dirt and filth and tears; instead, help him out by cleaning him up.
What is mercy or dayā ? “Oh! Too bad, so bad your kurta is gone. You know, it happened with my cousin also, just two years back he lost his kurta. Here, come over, weep. My shoulder is there. Kandha (shoulder) is my name!”
When you are very merciful, then your name is kandha. When you are compassionate, your name is Kanha (Krishna). Get the difference? Just too many people are kandha. When you want to cry, you go to them. If you don’t cry, the relationship is gone. In Dharamshala, we were talking a lot about agony aunts. Their sole purpose in life is to help others cry. That is mercy, a very ugly thing.
Compassion is not to weep but to apply the soap. You can either weep with others, or you can clean them up. Decide.
