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The word compassion comes from the Latin
stem compati meaning “suffer with, feel pity”; In English the three
main definitions of compassion are:
•Grief
•Suffering together with another; fellow feeling sympathy
•Pity that inclines one to spare or to succor (heal).
Compassion therefore is a quality that brings people together. It is in effect
“divine respect”. There is no greater emotion than to feel and
absorb the pain of someone else to help ease their burden. Like those famous
images of heroes that helped others ease the pain of the journey or the load,
compassion is helping other humans in the present moment, ease the pain they
experience.
When the compassionate person has such understand and can give themselves
completely to the sorrowful person, the healing capacity can be profound.
Profound enough to often see immediate recovery, sometimes called
“miraculous” recovery.
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By definition from the original Latin
stem, we see in the word compassion the ability for a person to feel what the
other person is feeling ( sometimes considered empathy or even sympathy). Yet
more so, we see in the word compassion the ability for a person to fully feel
the emotional grief and suffering of another with them in the present moment.
This is a key and vital definition of compassion that distinguishes it from many
other words. The second definition “suffering together” implies a
physical facing and sharing of suffering; not remote control empathy via
letters, faxes, phones or television. It is the physical synchronization of two
people (or more) in the presence of one another in the present moment.
The second key aspect of compassion is that it is a scaleable and functional
value. When a person may not necessarily be suffering, compassion still allows
us by the second definition to feel “sympathetic” to their
feelings. Thus compassion at all times enables us to see not only the other
persons point of view, but the other persons emotional point of view.
Compassion is the emotional healing skill, the “magic” of the
mystics who throughout the ages have shown time and time again, that by being
in sync with the person who is suffering, by understanding and unlocking in the
suffering persons mind the root of the suffering and by sharing the burden of
guilt, pain or sorrow with them, the compassionate person can absorb their hurt
and help them to heal. The result is that this greatly boosts the sorrowful
persons chance of recovery.
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