Comment: We know that empathy is the ability to feel the world of another as our own. We are literally capable of feeling someone else’s pain. Psychologists claim that if we experience empathic pain for a long time, we often become emotionally exhausted.

This happens to firefighters, those who work in emergency services, etc. They say through empathy we come to feel the pain of someone else. However, we also feel the pain of someone else through compassion, but in that case, we can handle it. That is because compassion comes with love. That’s the whole difference between the two.

My Response: Correct.

Comment: The official definition of empathy is the ability to identify with the emotions of another, but compassion is defined as sympathy for the suffering of another.

My Response: It is like stepping into the world of another and feeling his experience.

Question: How can we facilitate this within ourselves? As I understand if that feeling was fostered, we would live as though in a different world.

Answer: Yes, we would nurture it. I think that it is possible. We are just not involved in this process. Generally, people at the age of 13 – 14 can fully resonate with another person’s suffering. And they would then need to be further educated on it.

Comment: That, of course, would drastically change the world.

My Response: Of course, no doubt about it.

Question: So, is it possible to nurture compassion in a person?

Answer: The understanding of compassion for others can be taught so a person may understand how to handle it. So much so that through this compassion for another, he may share another’s suffering by taking it partially upon himself and in this way neutralize their suffering.

The fact that you neutralize it by engaging with him, sympathizing, and being compassionate, you gradually break up his suffering into a number of smaller parts and by doing so, bring him relief. Similarly, you can bring the whole world into balance and to an inner-state-of-being you can call blissfulness.

Question: So, shared compassion among all the people on earth will lead to a state of blissfulness in the world?

Answer: Yes. That’s exactly what we have to achieve in our connection. Otherwise, we have some very serious problems ahead of us. This is because the ego continues to grow and the upper light is revealed in relation to the ego even more. Meaning, we are going to feel greater pressure in relation to our ego such that if we don’t find a way to unite and share all of that among ourselves, we won’t be able to tolerate it.

Question: Is compassion essentially the basis of what you mention all the time: unity, connection, positive thoughts, and good connections?

Answer: Yes. Practically speaking, it’s not even compassion. It is the division of all the huge suffering, the opposites of a huge desire and a huge light that should fill this desire, and the absence of an intention “not for yourself” that allows you to fill the desire with light.

Question: So it can only be filled if my intention is for the sake of others?

Answer: Yes. This is why we need this balance here. All this can only be realized if we learn to be compassionate, to divide the difference between absolute fulfillment and absolute emptiness amongst every person.

Obviously, nobody will be worse off in this case. But if we want to divide it this way, the difference itself will disappear. That is the whole point of this remarkable quality of unification.

Question: And at this point, is it correct to say that the state of blissfulness will come?

Answer: Yes. Then this feeling of the contradiction, impossibility, and an inner cry turns into a quenching, into something beyond corporeal, into pleasure. At that point, there is no difference between great pain and great pleasure. There they connect.

Question: And what does the pain become in this case?

Answer: Pleasure, because you have balanced them out.

Question: That is very elevated.

Answer: That’s how it works at a higher level.

Question: Is the pain given to us to turn it into pleasure?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And the greatest pain, as a result, turns out to be the greatest pleasure?

Answer: Yes. If you know how to balance these opposites, you get pleasure.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/6/22

Related Material:
“How Do I Become More Compassionate And Empathetic?” (Quora)
What Gives Us the Possibility to Live
A Subtle Inclination Of A Sensitive Soul

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