so, I need to read einstein's autobiography probably.

I've been thinking about this whole compassion bit, and what it really, honestly, truly looks like in my life. It is easy to diagnose in other areas, and especially in people who differ from me and struggle with things and people that/who I do not struggle with- because it is removed from my own life and compassion issues. And I am forced to remember what Albert Einstein says:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security."

"...restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us."
The struggle is not only to free ourselves from this- but first to figure out WHAT the hell 'our personal desires' and WHO 'persons close to us' are. It's easy to point fingers and see where everyone else is faltering and being reactionary because of their own upbringing. Which, still, takes a certain awareness that not everybody has; however, that is only a part of the process; it's necessary to extend beyond this 'outer awareness' and find an even deeper inner awareness to apply this to our own lives. And in doing so we are able to "free ourselves from this prison..."

Einstein says "by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures..." we free ourselves of this self-inhibition. It is only by realizing who it is we find hard to love. What people-group, socio-economic class, personality-type, age-group- for whatever reason (to be discovered), has proven the most difficult to love. And those, specifically, are the people that we must endeavor to love most deeply. Because only by widening that circle of compassion to include those people will we be able to get outside of our own desires and slim aptitude for affection. Again, it is easy to love those who are like us. It is easier to understand the plight of those with whom we relate closely.

And if I deem the struggle of someone else, on any level, to be less than my own (or less than those whom I relate closely to), of course my natural response is some kind of disdain. I am frustrated that they do not see the situation for what it really is; that their circle of awareness is tiny (especially compared to mine), or some other invisible vice- that only after more breakdowns and realizations, I come to see in myself. Those people who annoy me, or just the 'unlovables' in people I do love (or, are trying to...), those are the people I must learn to understand and love. And so it seems the goal is: forever increasing compassion to free myself from the prison of some facile self-possession. Awesome, how conceivable.

and so goes the constant conversation with myself. The next challenge will to put down in writing the persons whom I must learn to love. I think we so easily convince ourselves (without even realizing it) of the rightness of our disdain (even the slight stuff!) that we don't notice it or the effects of it. And maybe we do, but can't find way to get out or around it. How utterly "plaguy". Thanks, GRE words.