The virtue of compassion taken to the extreme.

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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solarmaul
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The virtue of compassion taken to the extreme.

Post by solarmaul »

I wrote this yesterday. It's not only a mental inquiry but rather an attempt to find a path to follow in order to be more and more compassionate. I thought it's a pretty unique virtue to think about an extreme of, others are easier imaginable. Forgive me if it's written poorly, or if I delay the conclusions, I wrote this in real-time while inquiring, and only now corrected a few things here and there.

How does the virtue of compassion operate in human beings here and now?

On the far left end of the spectrum we may put those completely careless and numb (utterly hateful can’t be here, for they are compassionate for themselves to some degree), and on the right end of the spectrum those that are as compassionate as one can be, in fact, the extreme of this spectrum seems to be the sensitivity of other people (a certain expansion of consciousness coupled with corresponding expansion of sensitivity).
The other possibility for this end of the spectrum seems to be extreme pain and care for others, after all, what does endless suffering accomplish when another person doesn't want a change? This is pointing of course to the superiority of one’s will. We will talk about those two possibilities in the further part of this inquiry.

The thing which was always most puzzling to me is why religious matters have to be bound by certain laws, such as that of the freedom of choice. Consciousness is oftentimes glorified, when in fact it appears to be completely defective. The only thing we’re truly aware of is ourselves, which breeds extreme egoism. We can’t truly care and feel compassionate about anyone else, we see no further than the ends of our noses. We are separate from everyone else, and therefore we can't really feel 100% compassion for anyone. If we could even feel compassion for 1 person more, as to feel exactly what they feel... this would be a milestone in our development. This way we would have 2 consciousnesses. If we expand it to the extreme - we could have thousands and millions of consciousness at once - we would only then feel what everyone feels! This would be it, the end.

But would it...? There's also one more component here which is oftentimes completely missed. It’s the personal, horrible experience of individual consciousness - that of doubt, that of being separate, that of thinking there's only "me", that of this existential struggle of constant uncertainty and confusion coupled or sometimes powered with demand for unreal things to happen and impossible answers to come. And many more. This is why it's rather irreproducible, for the compassionate being would have to somehow detach himself from the "compassionate consciousness of everyone" into a "single consciousness" to experience full compassion. Forgetting everything and everyone else, previously empathized with, in fact, clearing completely the previous consciousness and becoming 1:1 copy of the other person. For what compassion is it to feel compassionate of someone while being aware that one is not bound by the same horrible things as they are? It's not even 50% of the compassion, because such a compassion already makes those existential problems of dread, separation, etc, non-existent ones, ones that don't matter. It has to be 100%, 1:1, what the compassionatee(?) experiences.

If I look at a person who is suffering, I may feel pain in my heart, but do I feel all the horrible things they feel? Do I feel their horror of existence with this, the fear that it may never go away, that they are ultimately alone with it in their consciousness? Do I feel their life story that sometimes is the sole factor of making their experience unbearable? Can I even feel how it is for example to live a whole life of suffering, and then lose the last thing a person cares about?

Therefore, I think it's fair to conclude that such a compassion, complete compassion, seems impossible in a way. Even if I assume that I'm God who decided to go on a trip into a single consciousness, and even when I come back eventually, there are millions of other people whom I'm not compassionate of right at the time of living the life of one consciousness. I can never experience a continuity of such a compassion-trip because it would be a denial of past-compassion trips and it would be a denial of time, for I would have to stop time, stretch all timelines one next to the other, and go through them one after the other, and only then I could resume the time. (further inquiry at the end of this post)

Therefore, I think this disproves ultimate compassion, probably only God has a way around it. It's absolutely irrational and unconceivable it seems.

Therefore, we would have to stop at compassion as not feeling exactly what others feel, but being compassionate of others, of every single being. More as a state I guess, and not as an action.

Therefore we can't really be at ease until the very last being is satisfied, and not suffering.

Therefore, we may conclude, that if such an event never takes place, we always will have to go back on this path, right? That we will have to finally say for example - okay, 99% of the beings have been saved and are in infinintely sufficient state, the few left don't want to be annihilated, and they don't want to be healed and with us here either, so we have to let them be. We can’t hurt for them forever. Therefore we will have to be less compassionate, or be exclusively compassionate only for one another, therefore reaching the extreme of the virtue of compassion is impossible.

One could say that compassion might be taking other’s problems unto oneself. A certain kind of a transmission of problems, suffering them for somebody, instead of them. This very idea has a few components which may be potentially dangerous:

-It's a magical practice, but on the other hand, it's sometimes used by saints too for example (in prayer or just like that).
-It’s bound by time, therefore there’s no way of actually annulling the illness, disease, or distress. The highest god here is the idol of Necessity, a natural law which is impassable. Annulment is impossible, the energy in the universe can’t be destroyed, it can only be transformed. Nobody can transform it (even God) therefore someone has to take it unto himself. It has to be suffered, one way or the other. Therefore God has to be completely removed from the picture.

On the other hand a few potentially beneficial effects can be pointed out:

-It allows the person to practice the virtue of self-sacrifice, a very precious virtue, that is beneficial for one’s soul.
-It allows the person to pray more which strengthens person’s relationship with God.
-It shows a possibility of more compassion by suffering the same thing that another person is suffering and understanding the other person therefore.
-It offers the other person a gift of not only freedom from a certain infirmity, but it also provides the other person an occasion of profound gratitude towards the one who suffered for the other person, and possibly but unfortunately not necessarily, God.

But what is the extreme of that view? It’s a view where a person has to suffer infinitely for other people’s free choices and their mistakes. Because the accumulation of all the diseases and illnesses is impossibly large, in a single instance all of those sufferings get cumulated in one consciousness of the compassionate person. But what we might miss is that those that had their sufferings miraculously taken from them will accumulate even more. They haven’t suffered anything and they will accumulate even more suffering instantly after being freed from particular infirmities.

As much as this leaves some hope, we have missed a major point in our inquiry. There is nothing wrong with that understanding of illness, but it’s definitely not complete. In order to complete our understanding we need to reach for a definition of suffering of the highest category. What could that be? I think it’s fair to say that the highest, most inclusive definition of suffering is “any condition which is not desirable by an individual”. It all comes down to the terrifying realization that every single being that’s conscious and sentient, that is NOT in the maximal state possible, is suffering because it’s not in the maximal state possible - even if it doesn’t feel that there’s a problem with it’s existence, such a state makes it inevitable for the person to eventually start suffering!

Therefore, until every being is in the maximal state possible, the cumulated suffering is endless, just because of the burden of existence, the inevitability of suffering. Therefore time is an impassable boundary here. Unless time, or the pain of human existence in its entirety gets resolved, we can’t max out on compassion ever. For the suffering to cease, the burden of existence would have to be lifted off everybody.

The staggering conclusion here seems to be that although caring for others is extremely beneficial for one’s heart and soul and their development, in the end, achieving an extreme of the virtue of compassion is impossible for humans with our present type of consciousness and even the possible consciousnesses we can imagine, and maybe it will be impossible forever for any type of a being. We only have a part of the truth right now, for only this has been revealed to us. For all we know, now it definitely is impossible. Maybe God has a way around it. We don't know yet.

---

The day after writing this, which is today, I’ve found a short story, called The Egg, by Andy Weir. What a Weird coincidence (forgive please).

[link removed—iMod]

It’s a nice story to sum this up, and if you don't know it I reccomend you read it. Though I would be able to disprove the sense of this idea in a minute:

1. The majority of suffering is just existence in a non-highest state, the sheer pain of existence as a non-max being. I don't really need to feel that times-every-being's-lifetime, because I already know how it feels from my own perspective, it's absolutely "enough compassion" to feel how it is to experience 1 lifetime of existence in non-max state, for other beings suffer all only 1 lifetime worth of pure existential pain. Hope that makes sense. We could argue the length, so one longest lifetime could be suffered 1:1 in terms of time, just in advance and for order in the series of lives.

2. It can be shortened therefore, the suffering duration is useless for compassion purposes. If something like this was true, I would be teleporting through this incarnation while feeling it to be natural (to not leave suspicion), and actually my life here is pretty standard and slow, between those more valuable moments.

3. Some people achieve transformations of consciousness, or they become saints, etc. So this may be a cool sounding compassion-maxing idea for a regular human bean, but when I involve myself with the heavy caliber lifetimes, it becomes pointless for I have 0 idea how their consciousness transforms and what they might possibly experience. Also, why would I have to feel compassion for beings who claim to be perfect? What's the reason?

I think that's all at least for now, I'd be happy to hear all your comments, or interesting additional insights. Thanks for reading.
osgart
Posts: 517
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2016 7:38 am

Re: The virtue of compassion taken to the extreme.

Post by osgart »

I think to me there are levels of compassion; basic good hearted deserve is the first layer, than empathy understanding ability lends to further compassion, the second layer, and the highest level of compassion is those who are doing good works out of charity of heart, the third layer.

Compassion without deserve I find is emotionally draining. And of course you are right, since we only experience ourselves, how do we know others well enough to be compassionate towards them. That is where being friendly comes in handy. Friendliness is the root of first relation; getting to know someone. If you can't be friendly, than sincerity also helps.

But having compassion for people who don't deserve any is emotionally draining. I feel like employing mercifulness instead in such cases and just try to be objective with such.

There are people I've experienced who take advantage of good intentions and emotions. And there is people who abuse and play on emotions, these drag downers are downright loathsome.

Vanity, and arrogance are also very difficult to deal with.

So are mockers extremely hard to deal with.

When I get the chance to show compassion, it is very relieving, and it lightens up a heavy heart.
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