Part 1 of this article ended with the question what is compassion. How do we define it? Is simply being nice to someone a form of compassion? It certainly can be, but I believe that true compassion is much more than simply being nice to another person. Anyone can be “nice” if they want to be---for a few moments.
We saw how our primitive ego is able to sustain our “niceness” only as long as the other person is being “nice” back to us. When we are “nice” on the outside and “irritated” inside because the other person is being rejecting, sarcastic, critical, or shaming---being nice to them may be “nice”, and it certainly is worth the effort as an effective spiritual practice that will eventually lead to true compassion, but it is not true compassion.
True compassion requires a high level of authenticity; an emptiness of primitive ego that allows our inner-self emotions to be congruent with our outer-self behaviors. Emptiness of ego means that we do not identify ourselves with our primitive ego beliefs; we do not see the world through a reality-distorting filter called our primitive ego.
To avoid misunderstanding, I am not saying that being nice to someone is a bad thing. I am simply saying that being nice is not the same as compassion. Learning to be nice is an important beginning on our journey toward compassion. It allows us to begin paying attention to the subtle conflicts between our inner emotions and our outer behaviors created by our unconscious primitive ego. It is an effective tool for growth in self-awareness.
In other words, just because we have not yet achieved the self-knowledge and authenticity required to offer a true sustained compassion to someone, does not mean that we should not offer them whatever level of compassion we are capable of offering at that moment; even if it is only an ability to be nice for a while.
It is also important to remember that when we refer to the primitive ego of the inner-child that exists in all of us as “primitive”, we are only referring to the fact that it is a young and un-matured part of our psyche; it is not an inherently bad or evil part of us.
Our primitive ego’s impatient craving for “more”, our never-ending sense of entitlement, and the feeling that what “we” want is assumed to be more important than what “others” might want, are just a few examples of our self-focused primitive ego; a normal part of every one of us. Another good example is impatience. Our primitive ego often feels like we should have the right to get what we want when we want it.
Primitive ego thoughts and behaviors are common to virtually all humans, but when our primitive childhood consciousness interferes with our ability as matured adults to manifest and sustain compassion it becomes a significant problem. Taming our primitive ego requires that we grow in self-awareness and consciously strengthen our adult observing ego. Our observing ego is the part of our psyche that can awaken and learn to intentionally pay attention to our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, behaviors, and the moment-to-moment reality of the world around us.
The ability to set our primitive ego aside so-as-to manifest and sustain true compassion for others requires a deep level of personal self-knowledge. We have to know our self, especially our primitive ego beliefs and certainties, well enough to set them aside; to see around them, not through them. We have to be “empty” of the certainty of our primitive ego beliefs, and willing to adopt an attitude of “not-knowing” when others disagree with us; a willingness to truly look for the truth in the other person’s position.
The most effective path to growth in self-awareness is a life-long spiritual practice of actually offering compassion to others. Whenever we intentionally attempt to offer compassion to others, our observing ego has an excellent opportunity to pay attention to the unconscious primitive ego material that tries to get in the way. In other words, the most effective path to authentic spiritual growth and the enlightened ability to manifest true compassion is simply the growth in self-awareness that comes from a life-long spiritual practice of intentionally offering compassion to others.
The following definitions of compassion are guidelines that can be useful when learning to offer compassion to others.
Compassion is not a feeling. Compassion requires a radical acceptance of reality or “what is” without our primitive ego attempting to judge it. Compassion requires taming the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child and removing it from the center of our consciousness. True compassion means that the other person can look into our eyes and see only compassion mirrored back.
Compassion means we have to be in touch with our own pain so we do not ignore or dismiss the pain in others when we encounter it. We must first develop the ability to see the divine or sacred in ourselves in order to see it in others.
Compassion requires the ability to sustain an attitude of mutuality; the deep self-knowledge that others have exactly the same right to want what we want, to need what we need, to feel just as important as we need to feel. Mutuality means that others are not wrong or bad simply because they want the same things we want.
Compassion is not a “philosophy” that we need to embrace. Compassion is not a nice “religious” or “spiritual” goal that we “should” work on. Compassion must come from the heart, not the head.
Compassion is not pity or sympathy. Pity and sympathy are only offered to persons we feel are beneath us; to those persons we feel are victims or powerless. When we offer pity and sympathy we are often secretly thankful that the person’s problems are not our own.
Compassion requires empathy; when we know the pain that the other person is feeling is exactly the same pain that we would feel. Compassion says I will be here with you and share your pain; I will not distance my humanness from you. Compassion says that given time I have faith that your humanness will overcome the suffering that you are currently experiencing.
There are many skeptics who believe that compassion is too touchy feely and is thus unable to deal with the violence and conflict that we currently see around the world. The solution they say is to meet force with force. There are certainly times when this is true. However, loving-kindness, compassion, and non-violence are not powerless.
Compassion is fully capable of confronting injustice and violence, but it always tries to avoid creating more injustice and violence in the world in the process of confronting these evils. Compassion may occasionally be required to use force to confront violence and injustice, but it never uses more than is needed and the goal of true compassion is always non-violence.
So why should we become a compassionate species? Some would say it is the “right” thing to do. I would agree. Others say compassion is important because we will never achieve or experience true happiness until we become fully human and learn to give ourselves away to others. Again, I would agree. Both of these reasons contain truth.
However, the most important reason to practice compassion is the sobering reality that we cannot survive alone. We are an integral part of the web of life. We depend on others, and the rest of creation for our very survival and well-being. Only compassion has the ability to effectively bring harmony, order, cooperation, systemic thinking, and the diversity of other living systems into the ever-increasing complexity called the community of life. Only compassion has the ability to bring all of humanity together to work cooperatively toward a common future. Only compassion is life-friendly.
The isolation that our primitive ego encourages through its narcissistic self-focus, and the violence and conflict that it creates through the black-and-white judgments it brings to the world, inexorably drives humanity into isolated tribal cultures; a process that destroys both systemic thinking and the ability to work cooperatively with others. Because our primitive ego can only sustain a focus on its own beliefs and truths, it is more often than not indifferent or hostile to the beliefs and truths of others. The primitive ego is not life friendly.
For example, the black-and-white religious beliefs of our collective primitive egos are currently creating levels of global violence that ultimately threaten to destroy human civilization itself. The future of a global human civilization, and perhaps even the very survival of our species, may well depend on our ability to work together cooperatively.
The enemy that we must defeat is not out in the world. It is the primitive thinking process we developed to manage childhood. It is the immature, unconscious part of our psyche that we insist on using to manage our adult lives; the part of our psyche that has no ability to understand the concepts of justice, compassion, and forgiveness.
Primitive ego thinking is a reality of the human psyche that we need to become aware of and accept; an immature thinking process that is directly responsible for the majority of unhappiness and conflict that every one of us experiences in our personal lives.
If we could experience a conscious awakening; a fully conscious awareness of our primitive ego, it would end ignorance and childhood innocence. We would never again be able to excuse our words and behaviors with the claim “I didn’t mean to be hurtful or create conflict”. The adult responsibility of our observing ego to make conscious and intentional decisions regarding what we manifest in the world would begin to grow.
The Golden Rule began with Confucius and was the central teaching of every major spiritual teacher in human history. It is not simply a “nice” rule to follow. Embracing the compassion of “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us” is the only growth in human consciousness that will ultimately insure our survive as a species.
The need to mature our consciousness, and embrace this more enlightened level of compassion for one another, has become urgent. It is only a matter of time before weapons of mass destruction find their way into the hands of those who would like to bring civilization, as we know it, to an end.
We will explore the relationship between compassion, faith, and religious beliefs in more depth in the next issue of the Newsletter.
(Readers can go to http://www.stonyhill.com/ for in-depth articles and past Newsletter discussions on the subjects of our inner-child’s primitive ego, happiness, authentic spiritual growth, and The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development©.)
Personal Thoughts
Jung said, " The goal is to make the ego as strong and as small as possible”. I have had several requests from readers asking to clarify the difference between the ego that Jung refers to, and the two very different parts of our human “psyches” that I refer to in my writing; our “primitive ego” and our adult “observing ego”. To simply use the word “ego” to talk about growth in human consciousness is unnecessarily confusing.
The primitive ego is the unconscious ego of our inner-child. It tends to be very powerful in most humans. It is fully formed by the time we are about 6 to 8 years of age, and it never changes. The primitive ego is the unconscious part of our psyche that contains all the things we learned about the world when we were children. The black-and-white beliefs of our primitive ego are often unconscious, and tend to be extremely resistant to change.
The adult “observing ego” is that part of our psyche that slowly awakens over time as we learn to internalize the wisdom and insights contained in our life experiences. The adult observing ego part of our psyche grows in strength much more quickly when our growth in self-awareness becomes intentional. The adult observing ego is significantly more flexible and open to change than the primitive ego.
Twenty-five years of experience as a therapist has convinced me that it is far more accurate to think in terms of primitive ego and observing ego when speaking about the human psyche. I believe that Jung would agree with me that the ultimate goal of all growth in human consciousness is to make the primitive ego as small as possible, and the adult observing ego as strong as possible.
I focus on the primitive ego in the Stonyhill Newsletter, not to be negative, but rather to bring this part of our psyche into our conscious awareness; to “awaken” readers to its existence. This awakening of our consciousness ultimately leads to the birth of intentionality; to the conscious realization that we have the ability to become more intentional and responsible regarding the future growth of our consciousness.
In other words, the maturation of our observing ego consciousness is no longer confined to an unconscious hit or miss process. With awakening, we have the ability to move from the narcissistic self-focus of our inner-child’s unconscious primitive ego into the compassion of our now intentionally conscious and self-aware adult observing ego.
As I pointed out above, the primitive ego innocence that could have previously claimed "I didn't intend to be hurtful" no longer has meaning. Once we understand the presence of our primitive ego and how it functions, we "know" that we can indeed be hurtful and that we now have an adult responsibility to choose what we project out onto the world and others.
Just to clarify, I believe that in every generation there are those spiritually gifted people who are able to grow spiritually, develop deep insight and self-awareness, and instinctively develop strong observing egos. The number of people with this ability however tends to be very small. Until we awaken our consciousness and become intentional about our growth in self-awareness, most of us will remain essentially asleep, living out our lives unconsciously trapped in the narcissism of our primitive egos.
To summarize, growth in our observing ego requires a) an awakening of consciousness that the primitive ego actually exists, and then b) we develop the adult ability to intentionally and consciously pay attention to, or observe, what we are actually manifesting, moment to moment, so as to increase our observing ego's ability to choose what we manifest. Authentic spiritual growth and the conscious growth of our adult observing ego are both directly related to the degree of intentionality we bring to our growth in self-awareness.
Regardless of how we achieve the transformation from unconscious primitive ego to that of an awakened observing ego consciousness, and regardless of our religious affiliation or beliefs, we will increasingly begin to manifest compassion and non-violence in the world. We will intentionally begin an authentic spiritual journey into self-awareness; a life-long journey into the authentic spirituality of unconditional love, compassion, and “not-knowing.
As we grow in self-awareness, our primitive ego’s conditional love, which is based on judgmental black-and-white beliefs and absolute truths, will be left behind. It will no longer make sense. It will no longer be helpful. There will be a noticeable decrease in our primitive ego’s narcissistic self-focus when dealing with others.
To say it simply, any person who holds rigid beliefs, or claims to possess the absolute truth on any subject, including issues of religious faith, is conclusive proof that the person is still working out of his or her primitive ego and has not yet awakened spiritually. As a result, they are still projecting criticism and judgment onto others, and they are continuing to create conflict and violence in the world. They are still trapped in the dangerous ignorance we call “absolute certainty”.
Quote:
Compassion: Inter-dependence, of course, is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness…….. it is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others. Dalai Lama
A Tiny Piece of Night Science lifts the curtain on a tiny piece of night and finds ten thousand galaxies hidden there. Each one a community of perhaps a hundred billion suns; each sun a potential home star to, say, a dozen worlds. How many stories, how many ways of being in the universe are contained therein? All residing in what, to us, had been just a little patch of empty sky. Seeing the light from these jewels shine forth across the great ocean of space and time, I marvel at our science and ache for a political and spiritual philosophy reflective of its insights. Ann Druyan.
Spiritual Practice
The spiritual practice of compassion requires giving up the primitive ego’s need to be right, the primitive ego’s need to judge others, and the primitive ego’s narcissistic focus on self. In other words compassion requires that we develop the ability to let the other person be right, that we learn to see the world as it is without needing to judge it or change it, and that we learn to put the needs of others ahead of our own.
When we learn to let the other person be right there is no conflict or argument. When we accept others without judgment, there is no need to criticize, label, or change them. When we learn to put the needs of others ahead of our own, there is no need for impatience, resentment, control, selfishness, or greed. This is called letting go of our primitive ego beliefs and certainties; an emptiness of our primitive ego’s narcissistic self-focus.
These three simple guidelines will take us a long way down the path toward true compassion and enlightenment. Over time, they will become an authentic reflection of whom we are becoming inside. Every time we fail to manifest these three guidelines, it is another opportunity for our observing ego to simply pay attention to our primitive ego. Eventually our adult observing ego will grow in strength and wisdom.
As I have suggested in earlier spiritual practices, we change not by force of will, but by paying attention and being compassionate to ourselves. True change is always a challenge that takes time and practice. Eventually we will change effortlessly because the old ways of our primitive ego will no longer make sense to us. We will come to see them as simply unhelpful, not as being bad.
The journey toward true compassion, unconditional love, and enlightenment is a journey into true peace and happiness. The only goal that will bring ultimate purpose and meaning into our lives is the growth in consciousness that comes from intentional growth in self-awareness. When we are able to quiet the noise of our primitive ego and listen to the still small voice of our soul calling us, we will hear it calling us toward compassion; the life-force embedded in all of creation.
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