Lesson in Compassion

Robin Sharma once said that 'every person that you meet every day is a teacher of sorts'. I never truly appreciated what he meant by that, until the other night, coming back on the tube, a young man in his early twenties threw up in front of me, just narrowly avoiding my shoe but making a mess on the floor around him. The people around him quickly got up and moved to the other side of the carriage or even into another carriage. Somehow, without thinking I followed them but felt uneasy. I looked back and saw this poor guy who was clearly feeling unwell and slightly embarrassed with his head down, vomit around him and on his clothes. For about 5 minutes he was like this as people entering the tube saw him and moved away.

That is until a lady walked in with her grocery shopping, saw the mess and young man and without a moment's hesitation, went down and sat next to him. She offered him a tissue to wipe himself off, spread her newspaper that she was carrying on the floor to cover the vomit and gave him a drink and a shopping bag in case the guy would throw up again. She then proceeded to talk to the young man and you could see his mood lift.

In that split second, I realised with humility that this lady and young man had taught me a valuable lesson. The lesson of compassion and love for a fellow human being. I became and still remain ashamed that I did not do what that lady did. To rise above the pettiness and arrogance of the material world and go to the aid of someone in need. This for me was the greatest test of spirituality than anything else.

You see most of us who are from one faith or another, boast about how great our faith is. We look down on others because they are somehow less religious than us. However what this lady did is a great lesson for all of those who profess to have faith and to be practitioners of that faith. We remain intellectually arrogant when we talk about the virtues of charity and caring that our particular faith preaches. However when push comes to shove, how much do we actually put it into practice? Of course, it is one thing to give in charity or volunteer for a good cause. Yet the true nature of realising our spirituality and closeness to the Creator is when unexpected circumstances arise and we are forced to react without any premeditation. This is the ultimate test of our closeness with the Creator and our strength in our faith. How do we react? Do we remember God? Do we act in a way that is pleasing to Him? In a saying of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) it is said that 'God will tell man on the day of Judgement, that I was ill and you did not look after me. Man will respond, how can you be ill oh God? to which God will reply, such and such of my servants was ill and you did not look after him' and so on.

This brings me to the second lesson that I learned that night. That is I finally understood the concept of compassion. I have been struggling with the concept of compassion ever since I heard about Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion. I could never truly reconcile the theoretical aspects of compassion as outlined in religious scriptures and daily practice. She says that 'Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect'. What does this mean?

That night, that lady taught me the true meaning of compassion 'do unto others as you would like them to do unto you'. In that split second I recognised that compassion is about the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to “experience with” the other.

If we reconcile ourselves with religious scriptures like the bible for example, where we are reminded in Isiah 58 6-7 to loosen the bonds of wickedness and to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him or what the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) said “You shall not enter Paradise until you have faith, and you cannot have faith until you love one another. Have compassion on those you can see, and He Whom you cannot see will have compassion on you”.

Then we see that a world which makes sense, is a world in which we connect with other people, often beyond our immediate communities and experience, and show them compassion and love with our neighbours.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said that ‘no one is a believer if you go to bed whilst your neighbor is hungry’ “Feeding the empty stomachs 40 doors to the right and left' The parable of the Good Samaritan also addresses this tricky issue of “who is my neighbour”, concluding that it has nothing to do with belonging to the same community or ethnic group or class but everything to do with compassion and mercy.

So where does this leave me with the lesson that I learnt that night? Compassion is about the grander things. it is about respecting and accepting the humanity of people. it is about doing something with no expectation of a return. I suddenly recalled a verse from the Qur'an (92:18-21) where God says 'Those who spend their wealth for increase in self-purification and have in their minds no favour from anyone for which a reward is expecting in return, but only the desire to seek for the Countenance of their Lord Most High, and soon will they attain complete satisfaction'. In an era of secularism, consumption and materialism, this is quite a difficult concept to fathom.

The third lesson I learnt? Every day, life will send you windows of opportunity. Your destiny will be defined by whether you choose to open the windows. Compassion is not about the big things. It is about the little things. It is about responding to whoever is in need, without a moment's thought, because they are in trouble and as a brother / sister in humanity, you have to help them. This ultimately is the teaching of all great scriptures.