“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
– Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness.
As we look toward the holidays at this time of year, some of us choose to celebrate our religious beliefs. Others do not. Either way, most of us want to share the holidays with our family and friends. Yet this year, all around the world, we are being cautioned to forego gathering together, which seems antithetical to celebrating at all. How can we celebrate with those we care about if we aren’t going to be with them?
Let’s consider a basic tenet of spiritual science. Steiner tells us that we need to recognize that “thoughts and feelings are as important for the world as actions.” He tells us that, for the world, it is just as destructive to hate people as it is to hit them. The inverse, of course, is that the world “benefits as much from pure feelings and thoughts as from good deeds.” As unlikely as this idea may seem to us – physical proof is more compelling – perhaps we can think about seasonal words like love and peace and compassion and goodwill to all and what they might mean for us if we embodied them.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
“Those who go heedlessly through the world do not regard compassion as having any great mystery about it; but to the thoughtful, compassion is a great and mysterious secret. When we look at a being only from the outside, impressions come from him to our senses and intellect; with the awakening of compassion we pass beyond the sphere of these impressions. We share in what is taking place in his innermost nature and, transcending the sphere of our own “I”, we pass over into his world. In other words: we are set free from ourselves, we break through the barriers of ordinary existence in the physical body and reach over into the other being. Here, already, is the Supersensible – for neither the operations of the senses nor of the reasoning mind can carry us into the sphere of another’s soul.
The fact that compassion exists in the world bears witness that even in the world of sense we can be set free from, can pass out beyond ourselves and enter into the world of another being. If a man is incapable of compassion, there is a moral defect, a moral lack in him. If at the moment when he should get free from himself and pass over into the other being, feeling, not his own pain or joy but the pain or joy of that other – if at that moment his feelings fade and die away, then something is lacking in his moral life. The human being on Earth, if he is to reach the stature of full and complete manhood, must be able to pass out beyond his own earthly life, he must be able to live in another, not only in himself…
… Another telling fact points to the significance inherent in the concept of love and compassion. At a certain point in the evolution of humanity, and among all the peoples, something is made manifest which, while differing in many essentials, is identical in one respect all over the Earth, namely in the adoption of the concept of love, of compassion… It is of the highest significance that, six centuries before our era, Lao-tse and Confucius should have been living in China, the Buddha in India, the last Zarathustra (not the original Zarathustra) in Persia, and Pythagoras in Greece. How great the difference is between these founders of religion! Yet in one respect there is similarity among them all; they all teach that compassion and love must reign between soul and soul! The point of significance is this: six centuries before our era, consciousness begins to stir that love and compassion are to be received into the stream of human evolution.”
Excerpt from: Earthly and Cosmic Man: Lecture VI. Given by Rudolf Steiner in Berlin, 1912.
We typically observe a moment of silence when someone has died. In the United States, it’s actually a public law to observe two minutes of silence on Veteran’s Day. Also in the U.S., a bill was just passed for public schools to observe a moment of silence for 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. Many of us observed a national moment of silence that lasted eight minutes and 46 seconds for George Floyd.
How do these moments make any sense unless thoughts are real? They are inspired by feelings of shared love and compassion. It is significant that we believe we are accomplishing something by doing this.
Those of us who are separated from our friends and family for the holidays this year may want to consider what can be accomplished by a mutual ceremony celebrated at the same time in each household. Maybe we could all read the same story or poem or light a candle, separate from the phone calls and facetiming, etc. These moments are so very powerful.
And, while we’re at it, we might try to love people with whom we disagree and feel compassion for all who are suffering in these challenging times regardless of their beliefs. Maybe the differences of religion or politics won’t matter so much as we soar above them on the wings of love and compassion. Too much? Well, we won’t know until we try. We should try.
Happy Holidays!