Love and Compassion

Love is a kaleidoscopic phenomenon. It has infinite hues which can form endless permutations and combinations.

Admiration can turn into romantic love which can change into murderous love as it happens in the case of Othello and Desdemona. “She loved me for the dangers I had passed,” says Othello, “And I loved her that she did pity them.” Their love transcended their races. It offended quite a lot of people. But theirs was genuine love, a love that went out of oneself to the other, a love that embraced the other in an elevated realm. Such love makes the lovers grow further as individuals.

But there’s always an Iago hiding somewhere just like the serpent in the primeval Eden. Othello is a soldier by profession. The soldier in him militates against the lover in him because of the games that Iago plays with him. If he was more romantic than belligerent he would have probed more into the allegations against his wife. But that precisely is one of the most difficult problems of love: your nature plays a vital role in it. Othello chose to be a soldier first and a husband after that. That choice costs Desdemona her life. An innocent woman who deserved all the love that Othello was capable of giving her is killed by him.

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra also loved each other very much though their love was more of lust than the kind of intimacy that Othello and Desdemona were capable of. Antony’s lust was a scorching fire that could “let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the rang’d empire fall.” Kingdoms are mere clay for Antony when he is in the embrace of Cleopatra.

But theirs is love too. A different kind of love.

Love finds a totally different hue when we come to King Lear and his daughters. Filial affection has its multi-colours as Shakespeare shows in that play like no one else can. Cordelia can love her father so much that she can die for him while her sisters are just the opposite. Sons and daughters never love their parents the same way. That love too has infinite varieties.

Love is quite mysterious.

Diogenes with his lamp
Source: Wikipedia

Compassion is a different thing. Easy to understand though difficult to practise. Compassion is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of the other. Compassion makes you go out of yourself and help the other. Compassion is perhaps the best virtue if you wish to create a better world. All religions should focus on compassion instead of the mysterious and complicated love.

Can you be compassionate unless you have love in your heart? Perhaps you can. Compassion can arise from understanding. Intellectual understanding can lead one to compassion. Many great philosophers carried much compassion in their hearts though they didn’t appear to be quite loving, let alone lovable. What motivated Diogenes to carry a lamp in bright daylight to search for an honest man was compassion. Or was it?

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 309: What could be the difference between love and compassion? #loveandcompassion