Getting Connected With Compassion

Feb 3, 2005, 12.00am IST
Anees Jung.

The 12/26 tsunami jolted one back to the mythical metaphor of the Old Testament when God unleashed 40 days of rain that flooded and washed away everything. In that apocalyptic moment came Noah's ark and the opportunity for creating a new humanity. A disaster like the recent tsunami probably signals the birth of a new understanding, believes Deepak Chopra who is baffled but happy to see the armies of the world diverting their activities from war to relief. "What may happen now will be true globalisation, not a globalisation of economic exploitation but one which has at its root the seed of compassion. Maybe nature is telling us 'I am giving you an opportunity to create a new humanity'," he says.


Once the disaster is relegated to history, will that understanding stay? "Then nature will react again till we get it. Or we destroy ourselves," says a hopeful Deepak. "Turbulence in human consciousness at a collective level is somehow connected with the turbulence in nature. So nature's turbulence and our turbulence co-reflect and co-create each other. We contribute to the violence in nature and nature contributes to the violence in us. If we could heal the rift in our collective soul we may actually influence nature's activities." While thousands of humans perished in the raging tsunami, not one animal died, Deepak points out.
Two hours before the tide, elephants broke free of their chains and ran inland. So did the wild bucks, the buffaloes, and dogs. The birds started migrating two hours before the tide swept in. Why? Because they were connected. Deepak Chopra explains that the earth is a living organism. It has a collective consciousness and we are a part of it as is all life on the planet. Because animals don't have an ego or a sense of a separate self they feel the pain and anguish of mother earth. Humans have lost this connection.


Why don't we feel compassion when thousands die in conflict and war? "Because", says Deepak, "we demonise the other and see them as the enemy. Consciously or unconsciously or even through rigorous training, before people go to war, they mentally demonise the other. The tsunami is no demon and its victims are not our enemies. When you go beyond the demonised perception you discover a human being who is just like you. So compassion is possible when you put yourself in the position of the other. In the sharing of suffering compassion is born; it is the flowering of understanding, love and healing. You cannot heal unless you heal the rift in our collective soul. At the deepest level of nature compassion which is connectedness is a fact."


Deepak's son was travelling from New York to Los Angeles when 9/11 happened. "For eight hours I was in deep anguish... When I got a call from him I felt immediate relief. Five minutes later it occurred to me that people are feeling like this all the time — in Palestine, Israel, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, everywhere. Everyday parents, sisters, brothers, wives are feeling it. Why cannot I feel their pain? Because I haven't grounded myself in that field of consciousness. If I am not aware and I don't have creative solutions for problems then I have no right to call myself spiritual. Our measure of spirituality should be awareness and creativity, not puja-paath. To think of the tsunami as God's vengeance or wrath is a primitive notion. If there is a God we must attribute to him infinite awareness, infinite creativity. The abstract God is undefinable. It cannot be conceptualised. It is a luminous mystery."