Human Compassion: A True Hallmark of Enlightened Consciousness

At a certain point in my life, I valued Spiritual Leadership as the final and all encompassing example of the highest human potential. So much so that I chose to ONLY read the writings of Saints. This practice continued for almost ten years. I learned invaluable points about tenacity and practice not to mention the importance of keeping focused on Divine. 

Then one day, I saw an example of devotion in India from a poor Hindu woman that shifted my opinion. I was visiting a Hindu Temple and saw this woman run to the steps and fling herself down crying almost wailing. I asked someone standing next to me what happened and to translate. He told me that she had saved for one year to pay for the bus tickets to bring herself and her children to “see her God”, the temple Deity representing her preferred image of Divine. Those bus tickets amounted to maybe $1.

Seeing that profound devotion ripped my heart out. I then thought, “It is wonderful to see examples of compassion and devotion in Saints that often spent their lives in practice, and concentrated on Divine, a certainly noble pursuit. What about the person that can find these qualities in the midst of the suffering found in their normal daily lives? Are they any less than a Saint?” Important question for me as I was operating under the belief that Divine appeared mostly in Saints. Innocent and naïve.

Thus began my journey back to the US and into “ordinary” life to see if I could find examples of Divine Love and Divine Compassion in people living their daily lives. Expressing the fullness of human potential became my new “enlightenment”, the ever-elusive state I drove myself to become during those nearly twelve years in India. 

Remember consciousness represents a fundamental level of awareness; a higher awareness equates to a higher consciousness. I am oversimplifying an actually complex interdependence, but for the sake of a short blog, the simplicity suffices. As I looked around me, I noticed this high consciousness in the form of human compassion peaking out from every corner, and every nook. 

• One woman chose to adopt her children rather than have her own because she wanted to alleviate the suffering of at least two people.
  
• Multiple organizations in Dallas alone, religious and secular work tirelessly to feed those people without money, without homes to survive.
  
• One restaurant owner feeds her weekly leftovers on Sunday evening to the hungry who gather at her restaurant backdoor precisely at 6:00pm.
  
• One doctor and his wife chose to adopt a newborn with Downs Syndrome from the delivery room when the birth Mother refused the special needs newborn.  

These are only a few examples I noticed around me. The goodness, the open heart of each human involved in these separate examples began to inspire me into the truth that we are already enlightened. We are, each of us, Infinite Divine Beings living a human expression and NOT a human being striving to reach Divine perfection. Divine exists as all Beings not only the Saints.

Then recently I witnessed the most AMAZING example of spontaneous Human Love and Human Compassion. It left me in tears, speechless. My niece and nephew performed in their Church spring musical drama production of the story of Noah’s Ark. The first “act” of the production was two songs from the newest choir: a special needs choir for all ages from young children to adults with Downs Syndrome, Autism, etc. They were soooooo sweet singing their hearts out. 

The choir’s second song had a jazzier, upbeat rhythm and at one point the choir raised their arms over their heads and began swaying their arms back and forth. One person in the large auditorium audience followed and suddenly within 10 seconds later, the entire audience had joined in with swaying our arms, clapping and singing along.
The choir seeing this beautiful response smiled larger and sang even louder with immense joy! The energy of compassion, joy, love exchanged between the choir and the large audience during those three minutes of the song filled my heart for weeks to come. 

Truly I had witnessed Divine in human form, high consciousness in action during an “ordinary” life moment. I stood facing Highest Human Potential expressed as Human Compassion and Human Love by “ordinary” people in “ordinary” life.