How do you differentiate among compassion, nonviolence, pity, and love?

Another friend has asked: How do you differentiate among compassion, nonviolence, pity, and love? Don’t they all mean the same?

Pity does not bring revolution; that is why revolution has not come to India. Pity rather blocks revolution. Because pity gives a beggar two coins, but it does not go in search of why beggars are produced in the first place. And when the beggar gets two coins, he too feels relief. He too does not reach that limit where he grabs the donor by the neck and says, “We will not take this charity. First you pick our pockets and then you give us alms. First you make us beggars and then you arrive to give us charity. First you suck our blood and then you build hospitals for us where ‘blood donation’ is conducted. What kind of net is this?” No, pity does not allow even this to happen. Pity becomes a consolation. And the poor feel that the rich are so “pitiful.” Nothing has shielded the rich…

Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?

There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…

Osho, we’ve run into a big difficulty! The difficulty is that, until now, we believed that sympathy is a part of nonviolence. We had held this for a long time. But while speaking of ahimsa under the Panch Mahavrat, you said that there is hidden violence in sympathy, because in it the “other” is present. Then you took it further, and, while giving the example of samānubhūti (empathy), you mentioned Paramhansa Ramakrishna—saying that when a farmer was being whipped, the marks of those lashes showed up on Ramakrishna’s back.

So, between sympathy and empathy, in reference to the tendency toward violence, please explain their subtle difference. And please also tell us whether what you called empathy is a mental event or something of the spiritual plane. Sympathy is commonly thought to be something very valuable and precious—but it isn’t. Sympathy means: someone is unhappy and you express sorrow with him; you become sorrowful. Sympathy means co-experiencing—experiencing alongside another. But the person who experiences sorrow in another’s sorrow never experiences joy in another’s joy. If someone’s big house goes up in flames, you express sorrow; but if someone builds a big house, you do not express joy. This needs to be understood. What does it mean? It means sympathy is a deception. Sympathy could only be true if you felt sorrow in another’s sorrow and joy in another’s joy. But while we can manage, or at least display, sorrow in…

Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…

Osho, you have said that in liberated souls compassion remains, and that compassion is the subtlest form of desire. In desire there is always conflict, always two—two mutually opposed. In that case, what is the opposing element of compassion that still remains in liberated souls?

First, not that compassion is a subtle form of desire; compassion is desire’s ultimate form. There is a difference. By “ultimate form” I mean the bridge between desire and desirelessness. If you wish, you can call compassion the final form of desire, or you can call it the first form of desirelessness. It is the link in-between where desire ends and desirelessness begins. Compassion is not a subtle form of desire. If it were, there would be duality in compassion too. Desire is always dual. No one can be free of duality within desire. Therefore there is suffering in desire, because wherever there is duality, there is suffering. So however pleasurable desire may seem, its painful counterpart will always be standing right behind it; it cannot be avoided. Thus every desire, at a certain limit, turns into its opposite. The opposite of each desire is present instantaneously; it is never…