This article is as the title suggests—an exploration.  It is an inquiry.  Last month’s article was about love.  This month — compassion.  According to great spiritual teachers, real love is actually much closer to compassion. This begs the question, what is compassion?  What does it mean to be compassionate?  What is compassionate action?

If you are reading my newsletter and following my work, chances are you want to help or be helped in some way.  You may want to alleviate your own pain and suffering, and/or alleviate the pain and suffering of other people.  You may want to help heal the environment, or make a difference in the world.  Perhaps you consider yourself incredibly blessed and want to give back and share your good fortune.  If you are reading this article, chances are you are someone who lives from the heart, guided very often by your feelings of wanting to help, wanting to make a difference.  And these feelings can often seem like compassion.  Isn’t helping others, being nice, being giving and generous, taking away pain whenever possible, living compassionately?

Consider the dictionary’s definition:

“A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”

This definition, in my opinion, is woefully inadequate.  It is based on an inherently limited view of reality.  It assumes that we, as human beings, are able to judge some else’s misfortune and act appropriately.  It also implies that our feelings of wanting to alleviate the sufferings of others are, in and of themselves, compassionate.  In my own experience, this is not always the case.

As you come to know your own heart more and more, you can begin to understand more deeply your own motivations.  And you may discover that what you thought was a simple desire to help, what you thought was compassion, what you thought was love-in-action, has way more to do with your own wants and needs than with anything else.  This is not to say that all feelings of so-called compassion are erroneous, but it does mean that exploring your own motivations, engaging in self-inquiry and exploration, can be useful.

Begin to ask yourself:

How much is my wanting to help an expression of my own wants, needs, and desires?

How much of my wanting to help is based on my own discomfort with other people’s pain?

How much do I identify myself as someone who wants to help make a difference in the world?

Now let me be clear.  I am not by any means saying you should not care about other people.  I am not in any way implying that it is best to be cold-hearted or indifferent.  I am actually assuming that if you are reading this article, you are someone who has a good heart, who is aware of other people, and wants to be kind and generous, spreading love throughout their families and communities.

Which is why I am suggesting that you take your beautiful heart, and begin to understand it more deeply.  Begin to explore yourself, your own motivations, more openly.

In order to know yourself, you must be open to the fact that what you think may always be wrong, or at least only a partial perspective.  Always be willing for another layer to fall away, so that you may see something that was previously hidden from view.

It is only as you open yourself to this that you can begin to develop an understanding of true compassion, which, in my own exploration, is far from what most people think of when they think of compassion.  For the more willing you are to know yourself, to see whatever there is to be seen, the greater your chance of letting life live you, of letting love purify your heart, so that you can be used in whatever way the universe deems fit.

As I have personally engaged in this inquiry, I have made some startling discoveries.  Here are just a few of the things that have surprised me:

• Sometimes compassion doesn’t feel good.
• Sometimes being compassionate means doing nothing, even when someone else is in pain.  In fact, doing nothing may often be the most compassionate choice.
• Any real compassion is impossible as long as your ego is dictating your behavior.
• True compassion is not about individual wants, desires, or needs in any way.

This month, let your life be an exploration into yourself, into your own heart.  Be open to being surprised, and maybe even dismayed for a moment or two.  Discover what motivates you, and be open to whatever is revealed.   

One of the defining themes of my adult life has been this something that I refer to as Love.  When the universe forced me into personal crisis a few years ago, it slowly became apparent that a key issue was love.  Ever since then, my life has become, in one form or another, a meditation on love:

What is love?
How do I love myself?
Why does my heart feel broken?
Will I ever feel loved?
How do I love and be loved?
Does love exist?
Is it just an idea, or is it something real?

So far, I have learned much through this meditation; I have learned much on this journey.  This article is designed to help you explore the contours of love in your life, so that you can enjoy the gift that is everyone’s birthright, the gift that the universe wants to give you.

In my experience, learning to love yourself is an essential step on this path of love.  It is the first step because if you hate yourself, you can’t go anywhere.  But how do we love ourselves?  When I was first told to love myself, I had no idea what that meant, nor how to go about it.  Love myself?  You might as well have been speaking a foreign language.  Loving yourself does not mean that you indulge every desire, whim, or impulse.  Nor does it mean that you become infatuated with yourself, per se.

Loving yourself means that you take good care of yourself.  It means you get rid of all those false voices that say you are defective, incompetent, unattractive, unlovable—whatever it may be.  You begin to see more clearly negative voices of conditioning, and you discover that they are nothing other than conditioning.  You slowly learn to break free from them, affirming your inherent self-worth, not because you have done anything or are any particularly way.  You are inherently loveable simply because you exist.  It is your birthright; it is the gift of being a human being.  You accept yourself as you are, and allow yourself to grow and change in the direction of greater peace and harmony.

Self-hatred creates destruction and discontent.  As you learn to love yourself, you break free from these negative tendencies and learn to treat yourself with the dignity and respect that is due to every human being.

As you learn to love yourself, as your own heart heals, the natural impulse is for love to flow outward.  Your relationships begin to change.  You begin to share love with other people.  You begin to discover that love does most certainly exist.  Yet this love is not a commodity.  It is not something that can be earned through merit.  Love just shows up.  It shows up sometimes on this path of life.  You might experience it with your best friend or your lover, maybe a child, or even a parent.  As you explore it, you will discover that the love is there first.  The love just shows up, and then you find out why it is there.

If you have ever had a particularly close love relationship, maybe with a dear friend, you will see how this is the case.  Chances are you felt an attraction, a pull, a love toward that particular person.  As you get to know them more and more, you discover that the love is there for a reason.  Maybe it is there to teach you something, to help you grow, to help you change.  Now the fact is that love is always there, has always been there and will always be there.  It is simply easier to experience in relation to other people with whom you have a heart connection.

The biggest challenge with love for most people is the desire to cling, the desire to keep this something that we call love.  Yet continual change is the nature of everything.  So you must learn to relax on this path of love.  You must learn to relax and allow love to come and go, to ebb and flow as it may.  In this way, love can lead you to greater and greater freedom.  You enjoy being with your friends, your family, your lover, but you also know how to be alone.  When you are together, there is love.  When you are alone, there is also love.  You let everyone be free to do as they may.  You are free to be as you are; to do as you do.  They are free to be as they are; to do as they do.  When you come together, it is a beautiful sharing.  When you are apart, it is also lovely.  You learn to float with the tide of love, coming and going, enjoying and relaxing.

You slowly learn to love the love.  You learn to follow the love.  If love leads you into yourself for a while, go there.  If love leads you to particular people for some time, go there.  If it then leads you elsewhere, just follow the love.  For ultimately, you are love itself, only most of us do not know it.  As you learn to follow love, you discover that it always guides you, teaches you, and informs you.

In speaking of love in relationships, one of my beloved spiritual teachers, Sri Nisargaddatta Maharaj said the following:

“You are neither the husband nor the wife.  You are the love between the two.”

Allow your life to be a journey, an exploration. Inquire into this something called love; this force that permeates everything.  Explore it within yourself; explore it outside of yourself.  Follow it where it leads you, and you are guaranteed to learn something that you don’t already know.  You are guaranteed to learn something about life, about love, about yourself, and about everyone else.

May love fill your heart always.

If you are like most people, you think you are doing life.  If you are like most people, you live by your to-do list.  You get up early—maybe you work out.  You go to work, take care of the kids, eat food, deal with your boss, figure out how to sell your house… For many, life itself is one big TO-DO.

In reality, however, life is much more about being and less about doing.  The exquisite blessings of life are not delivered based on how much you do.  No, life’s greatest treasures, life’s pleasures, life’s bliss, life’s ecstasy, are based on being.  Just learning how to be yourself, how to be free, how to be love, how to just be.  The true tragedy is that most of us have no idea how to be free, how to just be.  We only know how to do.  We have lost the art of human being; we have traded it for human doing.

Now the beautiful thing is that when you learn the art of being, it does not mean that you have to stop doing, for you can “be” doing anything.  Or not doing anything.  Being is simply the art of allowing life to unfold, allowing life to live you and lead you where it may.  To the outside observer, everything might look the same.  It is simply your orientation that is different.

One of the great master keys to learning the art of being is to discover that life is living you.  You think you are living life.  You think you are doing so much.  But in truth, in reality, life is doing you.  You are just here for the ride.  Learn to shift your awareness away from being the doer and instead allow life to do you.  This might sound esoteric, but in truth it is very practical.

One way to make it practical is to master the art of allowing.  Begin to approach life from the perspective of allowing. Do you have many tasks to complete?  Allow them to get done.  Yes, you may still be doing them, but you will be allowing them to get done.  They will get done through you, not by you.  Are you feeling stressed?  Allow life to unfold.  Are you looking for answers?  Live the questions and allow the answers to come.  Are you struggling with illness?  Allow your body to heal.

Now you might think this sounds simplistic.  Your response may be: yes, very nice idea, but I have bills to pay, and a real health condition, and I need to do things in order to get through my day.  And yes, this is all very real, and very true.  But when you have an orientation of allowing life to unfold, and allowing things to get done, everything gets accomplished with much more ease and less strain.

No need to do anything dramatic, no need to make any big change.  Just as you go throughout your day, remind yourself that you are allowing.  Whatever struggles you are confronting, allow whatever IS just to be.  Life is always much easier when you are not fighting with what is happening.  Life might be painful; it might be difficult; it might be stressful.  Or it might be fun, and light, and easy.  Whatever it is, just allow it to be.  Allow it to be.  Allow it to arise and subside.  Allow yourself to experience.  Just allow, allow, allow.  Allow life to unfold.

It is an absolute illusion that you are doing life.  Life is truly doing you.  And the more willing you are to allow life to do you, the easier it becomes.  The more you allow life to live you, the more freedom, joy, and love, you can and will experience.  So as you go throughout your day, just remind yourself occasionally, remind yourself to allow.  Remind yourself to be. In the midst of activity, just continue to be.  And watch to see if everything gets just a little bit easier, as you discover what it means to be a human being, an actual human BEING…

Life is meant to be a love affair, an actual love affair.  Life, as it truly is, is in fact, a love affair.  Now you can choose whether or not to experience life as such, whether or not to join in the dance.  But no matter what, life itself always remains a true love affair, an intimate dance in each and every moment.

Every desire for love, every desire to love, is simply the longing within you to experience the reality of life, the truth of what you are.  Your longing for love is your longing to know and experience yourself as the love that you are in reality.

Each and every human experience of love is designed for the sole purpose of showing you what you truly are; it is designed to illumine the nature of you true beauty.

The mistake that people make is thinking that love comes from some particular experience and is dependent on a particular experience.  The human mind creates the illusion that love comes from an experience or an interaction with a particular object.

In reality, love is inherent in every experience.  Love is what is actually happening in every experience.  Most people miss this because they think of love as a feeling; they think of love as something that comes and goes.  But true love is the very ground of existence.  It cannot come and go because it simply IS.  Love is what is in every experience.  Whether your experience is pleasurable or painful, good or bad, friendly or unfriendly, what is happening is still love.

This may sound like a tall claim, an extreme claim, even an impossible claim.  But if you think about it, even for a moment, you will discover that it can be no other way.

You do not exist as a separate individual but exist only in communion with the entire cosmos.  You are appearing as what you perceive of as “you”, as a particular body-mind.  But in essence, “you” has no independent existence at all.  You are the same as the flowers, as the dirt, as the air, as your friends, as your lover, as your cat, as your dog.  You are the same essence.

As you realize and experience this, every interaction becomes a kiss; every interaction becomes intimate.  When you are open, when you are available, every experience is a kiss from the divine in its myriad forms.

1. When you walk through the park, notice the trees, the flowers, the ocean – they all stop to smile, wave, and embrace you, if given half the chance.
2. Instead of judging your body for its perceived flaws and imperfections, practice dropping into it and fully experiencing it.  Your body is always alive with love.
3. In every interaction, whether with pleasant or unpleasant, let yourself experience the love that is underneath the pleasure or the pain.

Love is what is happening all the time.  Simply let life love you. That is what it is designed to do, if given half the chance.

So instead of thinking that love comes from a particular experience, use every experience where you feel love to remind yourself of what is already and always the case.

When you experience a moment of love, a hug from a friend, an embrace with your lover, a smile on a child’s face, let that remind you of the love that is always there, always available, all the time.  Use that experience to remind you that life is love happening, and you are an intrinsic, indispensable, an exquisitely beautiful part of the cosmic love affair.

Sarah Maria, author of Love Your Body, Love Your Life, outlines her 5-step process for helping you feel great in and about your body. Her work embraces the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, for true, lasting healing. Purchase your copy and begin to love your body today.  Visit: www.sarahmaria.com or for more about Sarah Maria’s work, please visit:  www.breakfreebeauty.com.