ONEness and Compassion

Different Conceptions of Love

by Michael Dolan

B.V. Mahayogi

Oneness and Loneliness

Loneliness is the primordial problem of the human condition. We have seen different approaches to solving the problem. Above all we find solace in Oneness. We become one with the family; with the tribe or nation. We become one with our work. We seek unity with the universe; even oneness with God. We discover oneness in alternate states of consciousness through the help of psychedelic drugs and even alcohol. We become one with our lover in sexual unity.

And yet oneness falls short of a solution. There may be family betrayal; for all my loyalty I may be ostracized from the tribe, exiled from the nation. Nothing is fixed. Everything is in a constant state of flux. The nation, the family, and the tribe change. If I was one with the family many years ago, the composition and nature of the family has changed. I no longer occupy the same place. So even as I struggled to fit in, the organism has changed. I may find that my place is no longer secure. As patriotic as I claim to be, the nation demands a new test.

In his famous American novel Catch-22, author Joseph Heller describes the life of a group of pilots. They are promised that they may go home after flying 20 combat missions. But upon completing 19 missions, they are told there is a new standard: they must complete 25 missions. When they complete 24 missions, the bar is raised again. They may go home only after completing 30 missions.

As hard as we try to satisfy the nation, there is always a new test, a new challenge. As hard as we try to satisfy the family, there is always a new problem, a new crisis. Family unity, then, becomes an elusive goal.

Unity or oneness is impossible to achieve. This is because we are unable to dissolve the ego. We can only arrive at oneness through complete dissolution of the ego.

The analysis of the human condition given by Buddha 500 years before Christ is still quite valid today. Buddha pointed out that suffering is based on desire. As long as we have expectations that we cannot meet, we suffer. Since desire and expectation are based on ego, the proper solution to the human condition is the dissolution of the ego.

Dissolution of the ego, however, is a drastic form of violence. Worst of all, it implies the destruction of the self. Buddha’s answer to selfishness, really amounts to the complete destruction of the self. This is Buddhism’s dirty little secret.

Oneness, then, is problematic on many different levels. Let’s return to the problem of love. Leaving aside the question of erotic love, which involves its own particular dynamic, let’s explore the Christian view of divine love.

Sacrifice

The Orthodox view tells us that God shows his love toward the world by giving his only begotten son in sacrifice that we may have salvation from sin through the life of Christ. In the Old Testament, God demands show the faith from Abraham: God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham rises to the call and prepares his son for the sacrifice. But when Abraham is poised to kill his child Isaac, the Lord stays his hand. The show of faith is sufficient. But, as if to show that his faith in humanity is even greater than Abraham’s faith in God, the Lord does not stay his own hand. Even as Christ appeals to God to remove the bitter cup from his lips, the Lord insists. Through crucifixion, God himself sacrifices his own son and demonstrates his total faith in humanity, his total love for the lost souls of this world.

The promise of Christianity, then, is salvation from sin through the sacrifice of Christ. Christ himself allows himself to be sacrificed through love. So that the idea of divine love in Christianity is seen through acts of sacrifice.

The Greek word most often translated as “love” in the Bible is the word agape. Agape translates love and also “charity.” In one of my favorite sections of the Bible, First Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul asserts that of all the different virtues “love” is the greatest. In the King James version, agape is translated as “charity.” If we take the King James version as being the most authoritative, then love is not as important as charity. According to this version, charity is the essential Christian value.

On the other hand, it may be that in the Elizabethan England of King James the word charity had a better reputation than the word love. Love was so often identified with the erotic principle as to have fallen out of favor with the theologians working at the time of Shakespeare. Perhaps the word had been debased by such licentious plays as Romeo and Juliet, where a 14-year-old girl commits suicide driven mad by the erotic principle.

If we take agape to mean something like “unconditional charity,” or “loving generosity,” then the meaning of the word approaches more closely its Eastern equivalent in Buddhism and Hinduism: karuna.

Karuna is a Sanskrit word used in Hinduism and Buddhism. It is translated to mean any action that is taken to diminish the suffering of others-- "compassionate action." It may also be translated as “mercy.” And yet, the idea of “love of God” is alien to Buddhism which recognizes no God and finds that the principle of erotic love only increases one’s attachment to this world of ego.

As did Buddha before him, Christ performed acts of charity. He healed sick, gave sight to the blind and even raised Lazarus from the dead. In this sense, he eased human suffering.

And his promise of salvation shows even greater love and compassion for its promise to end human suffering completely.

And yet, the idea of “divine love” in Christianity is vague, especially when restricted to “charity,” or “easing human suffering.”

After all, is it really “compassion” or “charity” merely to patch someone up so they can continue suffering? Mother Teresa was criticized for her lack of compassion since her hospices in Calcutta really did nothing more than give people a “comfortable” place to die. But she argued that she was administering to their souls and not their bodies, preparing them a place in heaven with the Lord.

Shouldn’t true compassion include a deeper spiritual dimension? Healing the body is well and good; it is difficult to meditate when you are in pain. But isn’t real compassion relief work for the soul?

We are often made to feel through popular media and culture that priests and saintly persons are only useful when they perform acts of charity like feeding the poor and curing the sick. But isn’t this work better performed by social workers and doctors?

We live in a specialized world where architects are not permitted to be astronauts. Why should saints do the work of dentists?

Is agape really the highest principle of divine love? Agape or karuna is certainly an important value. Acts of charity like helping the poor, healing the sick, teaching the illiterate should be carried out. I myself have spent years working as a teacher in rural Mexico and derive great satisfaction from helping people learn. Still, I’m not convinced that acts of charity constitute the highest form of love.

In Epistles to Ephesians Paul counsels felt that divinity is attained not through works, but through faith. And later he says that love is superior even to faith. So the concept of love must be deeper than mere generosity, good works, or charity. There must be something deeper at work here.

Different mystics over the ages have contributed to the theological literature on divine love. In Revelations of Divine Love: Julian of Northwich writes:

“For our natural will is to have God, and the good will of God is to have us; and we can never cease from this willing nor from this longing until we have him in fulness of joy; and then we will want no more.”

Julian was a 14th century English saint who survived the black plague. While at death’s door with a mysterious illness she was visited with a number of divine visions of Jesus Christ. Later she became an anchorite, living in a cell as a hermit in the churchyard of St. Julian of Northwich. She led a solitary life and wrote of her mystic realizations. Thomas Merton wrote of her, “There can be no doubt that Julian of Northwich is the greatest of the English mystics.”

And yet, even Julian of Northwich in her ecstasy of love, has “one-ness” as her goal: “... what the maker, the keeper, and the lover mean to me, I cannot tell, for until I am oned in essence with him, I will have have full rest nor true bliss.”

Christianity seems on its face to be monotheistic and to observe a strict dualism between soul and God; but who or what God is we cannot know. We are told that God the Father and Christ are One in the Spirit, but how this “oneness” plays out is a mystery. Theologians speak of the “holy spirit” in a vague and undefined way. In many ways the idea of the “holy spirit” is nondifferent from the idea of eternal consciousness or Brahman. If God and Christ are all one with the “Holy Spirit,” then Christianity, for all the miraculous talk about the sacrifice of Jesus and Salvation, is really another version of Vedantic monism:The end is oneness.

When queried on this subtle distinction between the nature of charity and generosity and divine love as it is seen in Vaishnavism, Śrīdhar Mahārāja had the following to say:



Christianity is incomplete Vaiṣṇavism — not full-fledged, but the basis of devotional theism. We find the principle of “Die to live” there to a certain extent, at least physically. The Christians say that the ideal shown by Jesus is self-sacrifice. In our consideration, however, that is not full-fledged theism, but only the basis. It is an unclear, vague conception of Godhead: “We are for Him.” But how much? And in what shape, in what attitude? All these things are unexplained and unclear in Christianity. Everything is hazy, as if seen from far off. It does not take any proper shape. The cover is not fully removed, allowing us to come face to face with “the object of our service.




The conception of service to God is there, and a strong impetus to attain that, so the foundation is good, but the structure over the foundation is unclear, vague, and imperfect. [Christians like the ideas of surrender, service, and giving everything to God.] That is common. But surrender to whom? Christians say that Jesus is the only way, and his way is “Die to live,” but what for? What is our positive attainment? What is our positive engagement in the Lord’s service? We must not only submit in gratefulness to the highest authority, but we must have a direct connection with Him, and cent percent engagement in His service. Simply going on in our own way, praying, “Oh God, give us our bread,” going to the church once a week is not sufficient. Twenty-four hour engagement is possible in full-fledged theism. God can engage us twenty-four hours a day—we must attain that position: full engagement with Him. Everything else is subordinate to that position. There may be some Christian traditions that may appear to be very similar to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, very akin in their foundation. We agree that we must sacrifice everything for God. But who is He? And who am I? And what is our relationship? Christianity gives us only a hazy conception.”