You and I are in training to be free. We’re in training to be so
present, so spacious, so embracing, we’re in training to not look away,
deny or close our hearts when we can’t bear something. The statement, “I
can’t bear it,” is what burns you out in social action. When you’re in
the presence of suffering and contracting, it’s the contraction that
starves you to death.
When you close your heart down to protect yourself from suffering, you
also close yourself off from being fed by that same life situation.
If you can stay open to both the suffering and the joys and the stuff of
life, all of it, then it’s like a living spirit. It just connects to
your living spirit and there’s a tremendous feeding going on.
Once you see all this, what else is there to do but keep working on
becoming conscious? You’d be a fool not to. You’re only going to
perpetuate your misery and suffering and everybody else’s if you don’t.
The other thing is to do it joyfully! When you meet somebody that’s
suffering, what do you have to offer them? You could offer them your
empathy. That’s a good thing to offer because they feel somebody else is
listening to them. The other thing you can offer them is your joy, your
presence, and your ‘not getting caught in it all.’
Having that empathy for another means your heart is breaking, because
you understand the intensity of their experience, and at the same
moment, you are absolutely, equanimously, present. You are not clinging
to anything, just watching the phenomena of the universe change.
- Ram Dass -
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