Compassion: Why We Need It

‘Cultivating compassion begins with self-compassion. … Compassion cannot truly be offered to others until we first offer it to ourselves.’- Janice Marturano

Life is not linear. Things happen. Don’t fight what you are going through in your life. All you can do is be open to where it is taking you.

Be kind to yourself. Do not beat yourself up. Nothing is about you. Do not make things all about you. That is not what self-compassion is about. Self-compassion is about love, care, and respect.

Compassion is good because it ‘reminds us that when we see someone suffering, we are separated from the sufferer by only the thinnest lines of time and circumstance, and we feel a pull to lessen the suffering. … It helps us to understand the interconnections among us. It encourages us to become involved with the well-being of those around us.’

If you want to build a great community, don’t forget those around you. Love them. Treat them with respect. And support them. And they will always support you.

6 Life Lessons From Nisargadatta Maharaj

Four Person Standing at Top of Grassy Mountain
Photo by Helena Lopes

Lesson . “Be fully aware of your own being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off yourself and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #2. “All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #3. “Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue you will have no peace.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #4. “The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #5.When all names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only. Reality is one.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #6. “Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Lesson #6. “You can give what you don’t have and you don’t have what you are not. You can only give what you are – and of that you can give limitlessly.”- Nisargadatta Maharaj