Spiritist Society Towards the Light

Pity or Compassion

March 17, 2017

 

 

Do you ever feel sorry for someone who is experiencing serious difficulties? Feel sorry for yourself? And that semi-crushed cockroach, below your feet, waiting to be the last trampled? It’s a complicated topic.

 

It is common to say that we are feeling sorry for someone. Not less common is to hear that no one should feel sorry for themselves. Pity seems like something humiliating and offensive. On the other hand, who feels shame is sensitized, and would like to help for the good of the person experiencing difficulty. Despite the good will, we need to establish important differences between pity and compassion.

 

The perception of who takes pity is from the top down, from someone who thinks that they are better and stronger - at that particular moment - than the other who takes pity. More than this, the pity presupposes that we perceive the other is unable to react, to stand up by himself.

 

Therefore, the attitude of one who feels sorry is overly passionate, but clearly out of focus, deviant, because they seek to provide solidarity to one another without believing in the strength of the person in difficulty. Worse, who generally feels sorry, brings in their heart an implicit denial of empathy, they often confess: "I would not want to be in their place." Now, how to empathize, without seeking to fine-tune the pain of others? This creates a distance and is demeaning and reinforces to the other the feeling that they are a poor thing and the problem they will have to face is a hideous and almost invincible monster, devouring hopes.

 

In conjunction, it makes the other feel lost, helpless and dependent on foreign aid, as it does not arouse their interest to learn or courage to grow with the situation.

 

In the Buddhist doctrine, compassion is the cornerstone of the teachings of Buddha. The Dalai Lama - the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism - has turned to the world with his teaching and advocating that we have a more compassionate life. In recent years, science has certified numerous health benefits of this lifestyle.

 

With the advanced and systematized study of what happens in the world of spirits, we already know that the law of progress presides over the universe. Everything advances. All people carry within them the seeds of evolution. Everyone. To have pity is to underestimate, denying the law of progress.

 

Compassion requires a different attitude. Compassion is being empathetic or leveling up with each other, shouldering it side by side, without, however, carrying the other person. Therefore, it is imperative to believe in the other person that they may again believe in themselves and in their life, even with their natural bitterness. Usually people who go through great difficulties have affected intimate cores very important to human essence such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-love, faith, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, critical judgment, the ability to let go, and especially, to love.

 

Being compassionate is to help effectively reconstruct this essential core, which has been unstructured through a difficult time. Notice that we didn’t say that this potential is lost. We said they are unstructured, shuffled between mixed feelings and confused thoughts.

 

 

Listening respectfully and intelligently is just a way to be compassionate. Those who have pity, as noted elsewhere, want distance, do not want involvement, bring advices wrapped with a bow, and donate them to the poor person, almost always making a speech of salvation based on their own life example. Paulo Freire always said that freedom cannot be donated, but earned.

 

But more dangerous is self-pity. Simply put, you feel sorry for yourself. I would say that is the result of the feeling of pity that was received so many times from others, starting to host it inside ourselves and then starting to behave like we are a failure.

 

Self-pity is like a secondary gain. This is an example of a behavior of a person who exaggerates or stretches a state of illness or situation - often unconsciously - to continue taking advantage for personal gain. More attention from friends and relatives, donations of material goods, etc ... We have to ask ourselves, what is behind this? Especially our behavior. Do we only give attention to others when there is a threat of losing them? Are we helping each other when we do everything, so they do not face life as it is? Are we only charitable when faced with tragedies? The answer is not simple, but one of its components is certainly to blame. Many of our actions are driven by guilt, much more than by love, charity or compassion. There are many who may exploit these feelings.

 

The real help is to make others to reeducate themselves and rediscover how to be able to face their own history. This is not achieved with pity, only with compassion.