Maharajji told me, 'Give up anger and I'll help you.' I found _x000D_ that love freed me back into the ocean of love and my righteous anger didn't do that. And I would rather be free than right.
Ram DassRead
Compassion and pity are very different. Whereas compassion reflects the yearning of the heart to merge and take on some of the suffering, pity is a controlled set of thoughts designed to assure separateness. Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity, the involuntary reflex of fear.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Compassion involves sharing the feelings of others while pity creates a distance between individuals.
In this quote, Ram Dass distinguishes between compassion and pity by highlighting their contrasting emotional responses. Compassion arises from a deep connection and a desire to alleviate others' suffering, reflecting love and empathy, whereas pity is characterized by feelings of superiority and detachment, often rooted in fear, thus failing to engage with the suffering on a deeper level.
Themes
CompassionPityEmpathyLoveSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of empathy in mental health awareness.
More from Ram Dass
All quotes →The gift you offer another person is just your being.
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Let the natural flow of the universe, course through your being, and harmonize your soul.
Ram DassRead
You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.
Ram DassRead
The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back. _x000D_ _x000D_ In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. _x000D_ _x000D_ When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.
Ram DassRead
When I look at relationships, my own and others, I see a wide range of reasons for people to be together and ways in which they are together. I see ways in which a relationship - which means something that exists between two or more people - for the most part reinforces people's separateness as individual entities.
Ram DassRead
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By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.
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We need to take action to develop compassion, to create inner peace within ourselves and to share that inner peace with our family and friends. Peace and warm-heartednes s can then spread through the community just as ripples radiate out across the water when you drop a pebble into a pond
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If you have a sick or lonely person at home, be there. Maybe just to hold a hand, maybe just to give a smile, that is the greatest, the most beautiful work.
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• People deserve a break. The stressed and unorganized person who doesn’t have the same priorities as you may be dealing with an autistic child, abusive spouse, fading parents, or cancer. Don’t judge people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Give them a break instead.
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In doing your best serving others for free, a lot of eyebrows will raise and sneers will curve many a - faces. But in the end those incredulous to what you put up with to help, no longer matter. It's not between you and those snobs, but with whom you have given your hand to lift, and of course to God who Is watching and noting it in your book.
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