How to Develop Compassion for Others and Accept Them Exactly Where They Are

Have you ever been frustrated by the behaviour of others? The family members who just can’t accept how you now want to live your life, the colleagues at work who seemingly have no interests outside of money and career progression or all the crazy political things that are happening in our beautiful world. All can be held with compassion.

So what exactly is this mystical and magical thing called compassion?

Compassion has three key aspects to it: trust, acceptance, and non-judgment. It is the ability to tap into the awakened self which realises everything at a deeper level is completely fine, yet also feel a deep heart-felt love for others who are too stuck in their own suffering to see this radiant truth. From this space, trust, acceptance and non-judgment flow without effort.

Who could not trust if they truly realised everything at a deeper level was fine and love never left? Who could not accept if they realised they had no idea about what was truly in a person’s best interests? And who could judge if they truly realised the limitations of their own conditioned beliefs?

The awakened self is in all of us. 

We each have a personality self (body, emotions, mental), an observer self (which can observe the personality) and an awakened self (which allows the light from the heart to flow into the personality and for us to reach our highest potential). The awakened self is already fully compassionate. It uses the personality as a vessel for compassion to be brought into the world, rather than just using the personality in isolation which results in behaviour, not in alignment with true compassion.   

Where many meditation students and those interested in spirituality get stuck is they then get level confusion and start to apply the insights of the awakened self (which they generally only understand intellectually) on a worldly level, without realising the critical component of universal wisdom in the awakened self. 

Universal wisdom guides you on how to behave in the world. 

We each have a different personality self and so many different contexts we face in our life, so to align compassion with exact behaviour or actions would be ridiculous.

Instead, we must be quieter and listen to the universal wisdom in our hearts. This becomes a lot easier as we quieten our egoic mind through meditation and other spiritual practices, allowing us to tap into and understand what universal wisdom truly is. Rather than make the decisions from our own conditioning (which is so limited when you truly see it), we start to make decisions from an awakened intuitive self that truly knows what is in the best interest of all. This results in us flowing with compassion naturally and from there behaviours aligned with trust, acceptance, and non-judgment naturally arise.

So what can you do to cultivate compassion? 

More accurately, what can you do to align more with the awakened self from which compassion flows?

The key practice is meditation. This helps our levels of awareness rise exponentially and is the most prominent practice for aligning with the awakened self. All other spiritual practices are really just preparation for this. To commit to a daily meditation practice is truly the most productive thing you can do to cultivate more compassion in your life for others, as well as get all the other amazing benefits of it.

The second key technique is to reverse-engineer certain behaviours that flow from compassion. This is not the most direct way but is helpful on the path. By starting to behave from a place of acceptance, non-judgment, and trust we can plug ourselves more closely into the vibration of compassion and the awakened self. As we implement these behaviours it is vital to be practical and wise. We need to have firm boundaries that work in the real world but come internally from a place of trust, non-judgment, and acceptance. Often these things can result in strong behaviour. There is no need to please anybody or live up to certain ideals, with true compassion also encompassing things that can upset others as it hits their ego. Our hearts still bleed for their suffering though and disconnection from their awakened self.  

As compassion gets cultivated more and more we come to a place of total acceptance of where others are at. We can be present to their ignorance, their suffering and their lack of awareness without feeling the need to change them or make them live up to our own ideals. Compassion doesn’t judge. Although we are more aware of others’ limitations, behind this veil all we see is the love that underpins everything and that everything is truly made of. Compassion is an aspect of true love for life.

So the next time you feel like judging someone from a place of nonacceptance and lack of trust, breath and re-consider your decision. What do the light and universal wisdom of your awakened self want you to do? Through meditation and reverse-engineering behaviours of trust, acceptance, and non-judgment this answer will become more and more obvious as you become aligned with your awakened self. Then compassion flows, without effort and with infinite love.