still on compassion

a bunch of thoughts came to me after going to bed last night, following on
what i've been saying about compassion.

there is all the difference between compassion in a compassionate society,
and compassion in a non-compassionate one. in a compassionate society
(where the free-floating i is there from birth to death ; no fear, total
awareness), compassion is normal, automatic, taken for granted, cost-free:
i myself experienced it in oluvilei, the trobriand village i stayed in (and
where they invited me to stay "for ever", but i was not ready - and also
conscious of the need to bring my knowledge back where it was needed (and
their way of life was threatened anyway....by ours).

but in our society, where fear reigns and all look to self and own-group for
survival in a dangerous whole, the exercise of true compassion (as i
understand it) is extremely dangerous and brave (considered foolhardy by the
generality). the visitor's freefloating i loses its freedom in the cell
of the prisoner. there is no safety clause, no guarantee of a way back.
that is the real thing (christ on the cross, common fate with the
reprobates rather than the self-righteous). the philosophy is "so long as
anyone is in hell, i will be too" (cf Gandhi's loin-cloth : he was happy
to dress better as soon as everyone else could ).

only 100% compassion changes the world, anything less may alleviate
locally, but has no general effect - except perhaps to help a general
smugness that "our" society includes such remarkabe examples of
self-sacrificing humanity - which is what "charity" does, until we
discover how self-serving it is, and defensively abandon even that -
for self-defence. Francis of Assisi is the best-known example in westen
history, hypocritically claimed by MargaretThatcher as an example, when she
became British Prime Minster and pursued exactly the opposite policies to
his.

life on a different level of being is what i have in mind. after a
start (and i do not know how that happens, it remains to be seen), i
anticipate a chain-reaction....for a fear-operating society has no way of
dealing with non-violent fearlessness. from a christian point of view, i
hold that all the time between the crucifixion and the envisaged
transformation is the second "Day", when christ is in hell : the
"Resurrection" occurs when our entire surviving species is willy-nilly
caught up in true compassion. may it be soon !