29 Oct 2010 —
Question
Q171: Devotion or Compassion?
Question 171:
“For you, what comes first: Devotion to God or compassion towards others?”
Please make your answer clear and brief (maximum 5 or 6 lines).
Question 171:
“For you, what comes first: Devotion to God or compassion towards others?”
Please make your answer clear and brief (maximum 5 or 6 lines).
Amma says in LOVE (compassion) there is the lover and beloved, the guru and devotee, but in SURRENDER (devotion) the two disappear and God alone is. So it would seem that surrender trumps love. Yet, at this point in my unveiling, love is my chewiest directive. That, and service….and of course trying to raise my frequency to the humor channel.
For me, Devotion to God comes first because a devotee who loves the UNSEEN God will surely be compassionate towards the poor and the suffering too, whom he will see in this world. I don’t want to be someone who does not believe in God.
Crying out for the sorrows of others, feeling compassion for them, bowing to those roots of humbleness which your sat guru has laid to your heart and loving Amma is not different from crying out for God..
My first quick response was “Aren’t they both the same”? Then, when I thought about it more, i think it depends on the situation. Devotion encompasses feelings for the suffering too. When I see someone suffering my heart go out to them in prayer. So how can we say compassion and devotion are separate ?
i think one naturally comes with the other. seeing god in others, having compassion for the suffering is all a part of devotion.
Compassion towards other leads to devotion to the GOD. Amma says she finds herself in everyone so GOD exists in everyone.
Although everyone has some compassion in their hearts, only when they are devoted do they realise its worth and the need to bring it out. Otherwise being in this world where people are mostly self-centered, even if someone feels compassion, he/she normally does’nt have the courage to stand up to this cause. Devotion and faith gives this strength.
I believe that people who are not consciously devoted to God often feel compassion towards others. However when a person becomes devoted, I think their heart opens further and their ability to feel compassion expands tremendously.
Both are expressions of love. Compassion is love in seeing suffering, and devotion is love in seeing the Transcendent. When our love touches people and recognizes their suffering, we develop compassion and desire to relieve it. When we touch a spiritual ideal with love, we have devotion. During Amma’s early life she had both great compassion and intense devotion – this increased till it became infinite love.
Compassion, to the suffering and needy, is only just the one of the basic qualities required to be devoted to the Supreme Lord.
Devotion bubbles up in the hearts of Compassion.
in order to have devotion, one needs a pure heart…
in order to have compassion, one needs a pure heart….
purity comes first, and then everything else is a natural expression of that pure love
Devotion comes first to me. Compassion is slow and requires a lot of understanding of the other person or situation. I cannot be compassionate to every difficult situation or person who seems to be in distress. With Amma’s help I hope to have clear discrimination to feel the Truth rather than analyze and arrive at it.
Compassion towards others and Devotion to God!!!!!Where is the difference in these two?Who is the others?and who is God?To me God is not a thing or a person who is sitting far high in the sky or someother world or in the santumsantorium of a Temple as an idol.That concept is only a representation.In the veshti level God is sitting or revelling or resting or meditating in the caves of heart of each and every moving and un moving living things as Atma(Jeevatma).In Total or Samashti level we call it as God or Paramatma or Eshwar or Bhraman .So if you have compassion to others ,it means you are a devotee of God.But if we have only devotion to God, ie the concept devotion which is mentioned above,we are not a true devotee,only a partime devotee to fulfill our metirial desires by performing ygna, yaga and poojas etc.
Once upon a time, it was compassion first. But now even that seems to have abandoned me. Altogether a difficult question to answer, seeing nobody has spoken about themselves 🙂