“A compassionate person is a compassionate heart.

When the heart of a person is full of unconditional love and when the mind of the same person is governed only by the will to do good, then that person is a compassionate person.

The compassionate heart of a compassionate person is filled with tenderness, with self-sacrifice for others who suffer, and with forgiveness of others who act out of ignorance because they have not yet learned to act for the good of all.

A compassionate heart has forgiven self for its many past transgressions committed by ignorance and ancient evil.

A compassionate heart has faced its own realities and will never again blame any other person for the errors that it has committed.

A compassionate heart knows no friends or foe, but has equal love for all souls with whom it shares life's many lessons.

A compassionate person controls his or her lower self and has found harmony and balance, for he or she has aligned with the Higher Self that now acts through the heart and the mind with love.

There are levels of compassion as there are levels of illumination.
A Buddha and a Christ have levels of compassion that cannot be understood by human beings.

Their compassion is the highest expression of compassion on Earth.
To explain further: A compassionate person is governed by the Light of Good and sees good in all situations, conditions, and in all living beings.
The eyes of a compassionate person express the softest, most glowing light that lives in the heart, and the mind expresses the blinding light of higher illumination.

A compassionate heart can never again blame life's challenges for causing distress, for it looks upon those challenges as a wonderful possibility to improve self.

A compassionate heart does not need to learn any lessons to love more, for that heart has been taught how to help, to serve, and to love according to the Laws of the Heart.

The heart is free of all self-interest and base motivations of the personal self. It has become all encompassing of the whole world and those who live in it.

Compassion is therefore the quality that bespeaks of true loving kindness and understanding which make a human being a loving person, who with compassion and mercy and full clarity has awakened to the reality of self and the realisation of the Higher Self.”

From "Compassion",
a booklet of Ananda Tara Shan
Text given by Ananda Tara Shan, 2 September 2002

© The Theosophical Fellowship