Maha Geeta #48

Not separate paths, but four steps of the same happening, four steps to the same doorway.
What Christ calls love is what Buddha calls compassion, with a slight distinction: it is the first stage of Buddha’s compassion. Christ’s love is such that its arrow is aimed toward the other. Someone is poor, destitute, blind, hungry, thirsty—Christ’s love turns into service. Through serving the other one reaches God, because the one who is suffering is the Lord himself. But the attention is on the other. Hence Christianity became a path of service.
Buddha’s compassion stands one step higher. Here there is no focus on the other. In Buddha’s compassion there is no “service”; there is the inner mood, the state, of compassion. It is not an arrow toward the other; it is an arrow turned toward oneself. Even if no one is there, even in solitude as the Buddha sits, there is compassion. Understand the difference.
You pass along the road. A blind man is begging; you give him a few coins. That is not compassion; it is service. A moment before—when you had not seen the blind beggar—no compassion had arisen in your mind. Seeing the blind beggar, it arose. This is not your abiding state; it is a circumstantial event. If the blind beggar had not appeared, neither the feeling of service nor sympathy would have arisen. This love depends on the other; it is pity. Buddha calls compassion that state in which, whether someone is there or not, the wave of compassion keeps arising within you. It arises on seeing the blind, and it arises on seeing the one with eyes; it arises on seeing the sick, and also the healthy; on seeing the poor, and also the rich.
Keep this distinction in mind. Pity does not arise on seeing the rich; why should pity arise on seeing the healthy? Perhaps envy arises, jealousy, aversion. Pity arises on seeing the blind. Buddha says compassion should be a state of consciousness; it should not be related to the other. And understand this distinction—this very distinction became the divide between East and West.
A Christian cannot fathom why the religions of the East are not service-oriented. As Jesus gave eyes to the blind, massaged the legs of lepers, fed the hungry—Buddha or Mahavira are not seen doing such things. To the Christian it seems something is missing; that Buddha and Mahavira are somehow lacking. The truth is otherwise. For Buddha and Mahavira, compassion is not in reference to anyone; it is irrelevant to object. Compassion is a state of being. Whether there is a blind person or not, whether there is a human being, or a tree, or mountains and peaks—or no one at all—compassion will go on showering into the void. Just as, in solitude and wilderness, a flower blossoms on a tree—no traveler passes, no admirer comes, no possibility a painter will paint it, no singer will sing—but still the fragrance spreads; it spreads in the empty solitude. Buddha’s compassion is like a flower blooming in aloneness. If someone comes, good; if no one comes, good. In Buddha’s compassion no address is written; it is not oriented toward anyone. It is a state of consciousness. This is a step higher.
For compassion that is bound to the other cannot be very deep. Suppose no suffering remained in the world—then what would the Christian missionary do? His compassion would disappear. That is a real quandary. It would mean that to keep you compassionate, the blind and the leprous must exist. Then your compassion becomes very costly. For your service, the sick are required—otherwise how will you open hospitals? Then, for you to reach God, the blind, the maimed, the crippled beggars are functioning as steps. No—Buddha’s compassion stands a step higher. It has no relation to another’s suffering. In fact, it has no relation to anyone at all. It is unrelated, unbound. It has no need of the other. Therefore it is higher.
So long as the other is needed, we remain very close to the world; we have not gone far. When the tie to the other falls, when we become unattached, then we begin to fly in the sky; our bond with the earth is broken. But this is subtle. Jesus’s mercy, Jesus’s love, Jesus’s compassion—everyone can understand these; even the totally blind will understand. A communist can understand. One who has no notion of awakening, no ray of meditation—that materialist can also understand. For Buddha’s compassion is very non-material, while Jesus’s compassion is very material. Hence the Christian missionary builds hospitals, opens schools, distributes medicines.
A Buddhist monk distributes something else; it is not visible. It is subtler. He distributes meditation, brings news of samadhi. He too opens eyes, but somewhere deeper—within, not without. And he too brings you the vision of health, but of inner health, true health. For he knows: whether the body is sick or healthy, the body itself is a disease. Keep it healthy if you will—still, it remains disease. And if not today, then tomorrow, it will be gone. Death is coming. Therefore there is little purpose in drawing lines on water. If you must write, write upon the soul. Why build hospitals? If you must build, build temples; build chaitya-halls. Draw some lines of meditation that will go with you, that death will not erase.
So love… what Christ calls love is the first step.
What Buddha calls compassion is the second step. Yet it is still compassion. It is not known to what address the fragrance goes, but it goes. To whom it will reach is unknown; but it will reach someone; it is spreading, diffusing.
Ashtavakra’s witnessing is a step further. Now nothing is coming or going; everything has come to rest; everything is silent. Where there is going, there will still be a ripple. Ashtavakra says: the Self neither goes nor comes; now the fragrance is absorbed in itself. This is that self-delight. Christ’s compassion is offered toward the other; Buddha’s compassion is unoffered, unattached—yet, borne on the winds, it may reach some nostril. Even if it does not, it is still afloat. Witnessing does not go anywhere; it is settled; all is void and still. In Christ’s love, the other is important; in Buddha’s compassion, one’s own being is important; in witnessing, neither the other remains nor the self remains—both I and thou have fallen away. Upon awakening, it is seen that the ‘I’ is false and the ‘you’ is false.

That is the final thing. In witnessing everything comes to a standstill; but if this stillness were the ultimate state, why would the Divine create at all? The Divine was already still! Then why this expansion of the leela? This dance, this chirping of birds, these flowers blossoming on the trees, these moon and stars, this vast explosion! The Divine is pure witnessing! So the one who stops at witnessing has not entered the temple within. One has climbed all the steps; the last thing remains. Now neither you remain nor I remain—now let the dance happen. Now dance. Sometimes you could not dance because of the “you,” sometimes because of the “I.” Now that both are gone, what can stop you from dancing? What bondage is there now? Which wall of the prison stops you? Now dance; now enact the raas; now let celebration happen! Why sit any longer? Now return!