It’s interesting too that compassion goes along with trust. Trust and compassion are almost the same. A lot of the time we don’t trust the truth, but the truth is the best thing for us. When we don’t trust the truth, we don’t have compassion for ourselves. Dedicating ourselves to seeing this truth and living according to it means going all the way. All the way to the knowledge that truth is truth, regardless of your situation, regardless of whether you like it or not. The fact that it scares you won’t make it false. What is, is. Who we are, the way reality is, that’s just the way it is. If you are compassionate toward yourself, you will let yourself see that truth. The Work and life itself are a matter of seeing the truth, knowing the truth, and being the truth. There is something about the life of truth, the life of Essence, the meaningfulness of it, the significance of it, the depth of it, the subtle, intrinsic joy and satisfaction of it that when you experience it, you don’t want anything else. You are willing to see through anything to have the truth. It is closer to who you are than anything else. We usually want to hold on to our beliefs and conceptions of ourselves, thinking that if we let them go, we will lose something we cannot live without. But when you have compassion for yourself, you begin to trust yourself. And you begin to see that it is the truth that saves you, finally.

Compassion is a kind of healing agent which helps us to tolerate the hurt of seeing the truth. The function of compassion in the Work is not to reduce hurt; its function is to lead to the truth. Much of the time, the truth is painful or scary. Compassion makes it possible to tolerate that hurt and fear. It is on the side of truth, and helps us to persist in our search for truth. The truth will ultimately dissolve the hurt, but this is a by-product. In fact, it is only when compassion is present that people will allow themselves to see the truth. Where there is no compassion there is no trust.

So there is a reciprocal relationship between truth and compassion, and there is a connection between these things and suffering. But the suffering is not the point; suffering is something in between that we go through. From the perspective of Essence, it is irrelevant. The important part is truth, the truth about who we are, no matter how much hurt, suffering, and fear it takes to get there. Sometimes the pain is there so that the person will learn the truth.

In the beginning people take compassion to mean the feeling of wanting to alleviate the person’s pain or take it away from them. That’s usually what people think compassion is. A deeper level of compassion is, of course, taking action whether you feel inclined to or not. The third level of compassion could include hurting somebody else, or not taking their pain away when you see it. If you take their pain away they won’t learn something. Sometimes they need the pain, in order to learn something about themselves. They might not even learn about compassion, because the way to learn about compassion is to experience hurt. Now if you take people’s hurt away, they won’t learn how to be compassionate themselves. The most objective compassion has to do with truth. The point is the truth; whether the person feels hurt or doesn’t feel hurt is immaterial. The point is truth, the golden truth.

For instance, the loss of the Will is generally related to fears about castration as we discussed earlier. The loss of Strength is related to repression of anger and also fear of separation from mother. The loss of Compassion is always due to the suppression of hurt. Each hole is generally filled by the same thing, with variations depending on childhood history and the cultural and social circumstances of the person. Compassion, for instance, might be replaced by sentimentality and belief that one is a loving person. Intuition might be replaced by excessive ideation, and Strength by a show of being tough.

To be a student in this Work, you need these two motivations—love and compassion—from beginning to end. This is very tough work. To do the Work with love and compassion means to appreciate that this process is tough; it is an almost impossible task we are undertaking. So it is best not to give yourself a hard time about it. You need to learn to be patient, to not judge or criticize yourself when things do not happen the way you think they should. You need to not be too pessimistic, and also not too optimistic. If you are too pessimistic, you will create a lot of heaviness in your process. If you are too optimistic, you will create too many disappointments. Balance is the best way. It is not useful to look at yourself from one day or one week to the next and make a judgment: “I haven’t changed. I’ve been meditating for two months, and nothing has happened.” This is not being kind to yourself. You are not taking the nature of the task into consideration. If you want to consider changes, or improvement, you need to not look from one week to the next, but consider a span of several years. Fundamental changes do not happen in a short time. Transitory or superficial changes can happen in a short time, but real changes, fundamental changes that will last forever, take years of work.

The suffering is already there, as a result of the lies. The truth simply exposes it. And when it is exposed, the person can let go of it. So the truth is compassionate in that way. It can eliminate suffering by exposing the lies that actually cause it. When you know more completely what compassion is, and what truth is, you will see that compassion is the door to the truth. You will go through all kinds of suffering, and compassion will keep the corridor open for you, and you will see that at the end of the corridor is truth. A state of Essence which is truth. Essence as truth.

Compassion: This is the aspect of loving kindness that is needed to experience and accept one’s hurts and wounds, without defense and without resentment. One cannot have an objective understanding about anyone if there is no Compassion. When there is Compassion it becomes possible to experience one’s deep wounds, an experience which readily leads to the aspects related to these wounds. Each time an aspect is buried there results a deep wound in the psyche, and the experience and acceptance of this wound is indispensable for the emergence of the buried aspect. Compassion is usually recognized in its manifestations such as consideration, regard, concern, sympathy, empathy, warmth and the like. However, it is a mode of consciousness, a presence of Being, in a certain differentiated form. Its real significance is not exactly to remove suffering, but to lead to the truth by providing the capacity to tolerate suffering. This increased tolerance for emotional suffering gives the individual the ability to refrain from ego defenses. This allows one to look objectively at one’s experience, which facilitates its metabolism. It eliminates suffering in a more ultimate and fundamental sense, by allowing the ability to see the deeper causes of suffering. Also, the increased tolerance and acceptance of experience allows one to just be, instead of trying to manipulate. This allows both objective understanding and personal presence. To be who one is is a compassionate act. It is compassionate towards oneself and towards all others.

Yes, he told the truth. And that’s the real function of compassion. The point of compassion is not to eliminate suffering, but to lead a person to the truth so that she will be able to live the life of truth. This is an important fact that we tend to not see because our ideas about compassion are not accurate. Look for yourself. What kind of compassion have you believed in and acted from? For most of us, it’s obvious where our prejudice lies. Our compassion has not been on the side of truth; it has been on the side of feeling good. This is not the compassion of Essence; it is the compassion of emotions. It is understandable that it hurts to see someone hurting. You may also feel compassionate towards yourself when you are hurting; this compassion helps. So what is the relationship between hurt, truth and compassion? Compassion is a kind of healing agent that helps us tolerate the hurt of seeing the truth. The function of compassion in the Work is not to reduce hurt; its function is to lead to the truth. Much of the time, the truth is painful or scary. Compassion makes it possible to tolerate that hurt and fear. It helps us persist in our search for truth. Truth will ultimately dissolve the hurt, but this is a by-product and not the major purpose of compassion. In fact, it is only when compassion is present that people allow themselves to see the truth. Where there is no compassion, there is no trust. If someone is compassionate toward you, you trust him enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to see the truth rather than reject it. The compassion doesn’t alleviate the pain; it makes the pain meaningful, makes it part of the truth, makes it tolerable.