Choose Compassion over Passion to Live Life Fully!

Love people and use things. People are to be understood and loved. Things are meant to be possessed and used. But if you look at how the world works today people are used and things are loved! Therein lies the answer to the incompleteness in our lives!

Almost all of us have either been used, or even abused in some cases, or we have too much attachment to material things, our possessions. So, we find, despite all the passion we have for things or what we do, something’s missing. That missing ingredient is compassion.

Passion is about ownership. It’s a drive that is powered subconsciously, biologically. If you are passionate about your lover or your child or your car, you will want to control her or it. Passion, of course, is critical to growth and progress__and in the context of success, ensures winning! But pure ownership and control makes, in the long term, you being possessed by what you try to own or control. Compassion on the other hand is pure, unadulterated love. There’s no possession here. There’s no biological dimension here. It is both conscious and spiritual. And therefore, there’s no ego, no jealousy, no insecurity. So compassion leads you to freedom. You may physically possess something but you will not grieve its loss because you are free from bondage. You are detached. Compassion is a great force. It helps you appreciate the diversity in Life, in people, helps you accept it and allows you to understand them better. Compassion is about loving and living wholesomely.

In order to transcend your passion and move into the realm of compassion, begin first by loving all the people in your circle of influence, unconditionally. Irrespective of who they are and what they have done to you. Don’t try to wish that they are different. Accept them for who they are. Wish them well and pray of their welfare even if they are trying to make Life miserable for you. Next, every time you feel attached to a thing, ponder over the impermanent nature of Life itself. Every single time bring your mind to attend over the tenure of your lifetime and remind yourself that you have come with an expiry date, except you don’t know what it is! So then, in the wake of understanding the fragility of your own Life, the object of your attachment will instantaneously cease to hold value or attract you anymore.

You will then see the clear distinction between people and things. And you will want to spend your Life, or whatever is left of it, loving Life, loving people and using things to the fullest!