by Elisabeth Mcgrath

Created on: September 18, 2011   Last Updated: May 05, 2012

The presence or absence of compassion in a person’s life is often unconsciously determined by the individual during childhood. Growth towards becoming a more compassionate human being is something that is cultivated or subdued with the passage of time. Where compassion is a natural virtue for many, the challenges to personal spirituality can have an impact on how often and widely compassion is distributed.

Compassion may be shown by charitable gifts or through expressions of sympathy or empathy. An element of spirituality usually accompanies such gestures and may be the impetus that drives compassionate impulses. Compassion is the driving force at all levels of human endeavor which seeks to create a better world.

Rewards

A person’s spiritual senses may be challenged where acts of compassion are seen as a give-and-take transaction. There should be no expectation of reward for dealing compassionately with people. Neither the possibility of community recognition, or hopes for a favorable afterlife should motivate compassionate gestures. Seeking payment-in-kind or recompense should not motivate an act of kindness.

Bread at a price

Compassionate acts should not be undertaken for reasons of converting people to a particular religion.  A truly compassionate person should be able to offer a loaf of bread to a hungry man without a sermon on salvation. While eternity may present longer-term benefits than a loaf of bread, the offering should be made whole-heartedly without conditions.

Hidden agendas

Ulterior motives, no matter how well intentioned, play no part in the practice of compassion. Spiritual senses may be offended when a recipient of a charitable donation rejects an offer for eternal life. A donor may feel discouraged if the greater, more permanent, gift is rejected. Feelings of entitlement to the care of a person’s soul may challenge those who were motivated to present a spiritual offer of hope only to have it rejected.

Personal challenges

Compassionate intentions may be side-tracked by feelings of dislike or resentment against someone who is hurting or suffering loss and disappointment.  For compassion to remain unbiased it needs to be extended to all within a community and not just to strangers or for the benefit of impressing observers.  The challenge to overcome personal feelings can be met by the realization and practice of equality.

American author, Og Mandino offers this challenge as a practical exercise for in-depth spiritual compassion:

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

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