Love and Compassion

There has been a long misunderstanding between Western and Eastern spirituality about love and compassion. While Western and Eastern doctrines have points of similarity and dissimilarity, as they are analogies of each other. Love, a Western point, and compassion, an Eastern point, are one such area of dissimilarity. Love is to experience the merging of two beings – lover and loved one – in love, an unitive experience. Compassion is to experience the suffering of ⁄ for someone. Here the possible merging is with someone’s suffering (the root of the word "passion" is sickness). In love I’m merging with someone else’s total being. For a deeper esoteric sense the process of love is the story of Adam and Eve where one becomes two and the two – lover and loved one – merge as one to become three – body, soul and spirit – each to produce a fulfillment of two and often to produce a third (offspring). For compassion one knows and absorbs the suffering of the other one. One joins one. For love we have also the twosome of God (lover) and his loved one (us) coming together in love. Without two there is no love. Here is an interesting imagery exercise that gives you a direct experience of what I’ve just said.

Close your eyes. Breathe out one time slowly.

Then see someone you know toward whom you feel compassion.

What is your experience?

Breathe out and open your eyes.

Now close your eyes. Breathe out one time slowly.

See someone you know who you love or toward whom you feel love.
What is your experience?

Breathe out and open your eyes.

Therein, I think, is a nice way to experience the difference of the two cultures, their states of being, and their perspectives.