91. Question: How can I become more compassionate?

Sri Chinmoy: You can become more compassionate when you look at someone who shows you compassion. You know that you made mistakes when you were a child, and your parents showed you compassion. Your parents were superior in terms of age and in terms of wisdom as well, but they did forgive you. They showed their compassion. When someone shows you compassion, it means that he is to some extent more perfect than you. That is why he can show you compassion.

You have to feel that there is someone who is infinitely more perfect than you are, and that is God. God is your superior, and He is showing you constant Compassion, infinite Compassion. You make mistakes quite often, but He forgives and forgives. Since God has millions of dollars of Compassion, He gives you thousands of dollars at the time of your need. Now, if there is somebody who is inferior to you, who is making many more mistakes than you are, he also deserves compassion from you. You can easily give him one hundred or two hundred dollars in terms of your compassion-power.

We should always try to have somebody as our ideal, or try to see our goal inside somebody. Until we realise that that somebody is our own higher part, our own illumined, more fulfilling part, until then we have to feel that he is better or superior. When I see a flower, I try to become as pure as the flower. When I look at a candle flame and feel its purity, I try to become as pure as the flame of the candle. But afterwards, when I can enter deep into my heart, I see that the same flame is burning there, the inner flame. Then I don't have to keep thinking of a candle or flowers outside me, for I discover that my inner being is always full of fragrance and purity and light.

Similarly, in the beginning we can become more compassionate by thinking of God, who has far more compassion than we have. But eventually we come to realise that God is also inside our own hearts. At that time we don't have to think of God as our superior and ourselves as His inferiors. Instead, we see that this God is nothing but our own higher, more illumined self. When we realise this, superiority and inferiority disappear into oneness, and we can claim God's infinite Compassion as our very own.