I am sharing this essay by Charlie.  A gift from him to all of us!
Compassion? Why?  by Charlie Berger

Suppose you were to write a screenplay. The plot is engaging and very credible, both dramatic and comic, and takes place in locations all around the world. The characters have depth, charm, warmth, and passion. The dialog is brilliant. After all, you wrote it.

Further suppose that you are highly ambitious and exceptionally energetic: not only do you write this phenomenal screenplay, but you produce it, direct it, and star in all the roles. You act each part in turn before the camera, and through the magic of cinematic special effects, all the images of you play their parts, apparently interacting together in the same frame. You create a captivating film.

But ambition and energy wouldn’t be enough. Not only would you have to know the characters thoroughly – and you do because you wrote them – but you would essentially have to be each character, one at a time, as you acted out each role. To give truly worthy performances, you would have to live the thoughts, emotions, words, and experiences of each person in the script.

It occurs to me that this might not be far from the truth of our existence. The ideas of unity and deep connectedness of all life aren’t new ones, of course, and neither is the metaphor of life as a play or a movie. The Sufis have the notion that only One Being exists, and that He/She/It lives through us. (Or so I infer from the invocation by Hazrat Inayat Khan used in the Dances of Universal Peace: "Toward the One, the Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty, the Only Being…") If we suppose there actually is only One Being, then each of us would have to be Him/Her/It. Be. Not be “a child of” or “in the image of”. Be.

That thought leads me many directions, such as asking myself how I can still believe in my own limitations or lack, or how I can still have room for envy, greed, or jealousy. But it also leads to the movie metaphor above. Suppose that the One Being directly lives each life in the universe, one at a time. (Please excuse the possible flaws in this idea: my mind has been immersed in a time-based apparent-reality, where events must happen in a sequence and where no one can be in two places at once.) This would mean that the One Being will directly experience being everyone everywhere, one character at a time. Then, whatever I do to you – whatever the One Being does to the One Being – I must experience directly, at some “time”.

“This might not be far from the truth” doesn’t mean that this is the truth, but it does provide an interesting if somewhat oversimplified angle on compassion. If your suffering is my suffering and your life is my life, then compassion isn’t just an ideal. It’s practical.

It has been said that, not only do we experience a life review as we exit this life, but that we experience it from the point of view of the recipients of our actions, which ought to encourage us to be a bit more compassionate next time around.  As some Buddhists put it, “Every being now alive has been your mother at some time in the past.” This is how closely we are connected, the degree to which we are one.

Consider that person at work who I can’t stand to be around. Perhaps the only thing more difficult than being with that person is being that person. Could I live that life? Will I? (Or maybe I already have? The time sequence issue again.) Consider my friends or spouse. I love them and I may think I know them, but have I taken the time to mentally step into their shoes and feel what it is to live their lives 24/7, to be in their bodies and in their life circumstances, to long for the fulfillment of their dreams, and to do and say things for the reasons that are legitimate in their eyes? Is there any chance I’ll have a lifetime to do that?

This way of looking at existence has also shown me a way to step outside my illusory self – the one that thinks it’s usually right and knows how things are. Although in this life I often cannot know why “other” people choose, believe, or live as they do, I am prompted to consider that a different choice than mine, and especially a belief or point of view with which I disagree, might be as legitimate as my own. Pressuring someone to be more like me usually doesn’t serve the Highest Good (intervening in the infliction of harm would usually be an exception).

When I see things this way, doing for others really is doing for myself. Loving others is actually loving myself. To have compassion for others is to have compassion for myself. When I look at things this way, there are no separate others.

Fran shared the following site on the Hooponopono:
http://www.self-i-dentity-through-hooponopono.com/newsletter2.htm

Sherrie reminds us of the upcoming Metaphysical Fair at the Merchandise Mart:
http://www.colorado.com/Events.aspx?eid=1232433