Empathy is the capacity to elaborate mental and emotional constructions through which the individual is able of virtualizing and recreating the states of the other in his or her own inner world, with the objective of understanding, predicting and connecting with the emotions, actions and needs of others. This type of psycho-emotional skill is almost non-existent in the rest of the animal species, since they still do not possess the necessary level of internal abstraction and, furthermore, they live and interact mainly within the instinctive-biological sphere, characterized by the patterns of predator-prey, attack-flight and domination-dominated. The system of life on Earth is situated in a Cosmos in which depredation is an integral part of the environment. Nevertheless, empathy promotes behaviours through which we care about each other, and even generates interest in the well-being of other species, something that is quite uncommon in nature.
Empathy requires such complex mental representations that it must have developed at the same time as the brain surpassed an evolutionary stage large enough for the other great human characteristic – verbal language – to emerge. The impressive capacity we have to communicate ideas, in addition to using language, has relied on empathy.
Some animals, above all mammals and, in particular, predators, have an incipient empathic capacity, although this is still far removed in complexity from that which we ourselves possess. Empathy is one of the characteristics that makes us human, in a step that tries to move us away from our animal roots.
Human beings are at a crossroads between three realms: the biological, the psychological and the transcendental, each of which represents an increasing level of complexity within the development of consciousness. Empathy appears as the intermediate level, the psychological (intellectual and emotional) realm, begins to unfold. Empathy has given rise to forms of collaboration that have enabled human societies to evolve from small groups of clans and tribes to modern states and regional, national and global organizations.
The psychological level, besides allowing the development of empathy, is responsible for the appearance of the ego, which makes us consider ourselves persons. Empathy and ego are linked to each other through patterns of emotional dependence. The instinctive interest in the well-being and protection of those close to us and our offspring evolves in humans and thus becomes empathy and, with it, a complex form of concern for others and for ourselves. This concern is manifested through the need for affection, attention and support, which, despite having a biological origin, immediately become patterns of emotional dependence during the psychological stage. In turn, these patterns are what give strength to both the individual and the collective ego. In this period of evolution, interactions will be almost entirely conditioned by emotional dependence and the egoic personality.
Along with emotional dependencies, new ways of relating have emerged in the human era, some of these based on an important by-product of empathy: compassion. The concept of compassion appears repeatedly as one of the central pillars in a good number of religions, which have been a fundamental part of the machinery and support of the social fabric, having helped in the process of struggle for survival through which humanity has inevitably had to pass. Some human challenges have been exclusively of natural origin, while others have been only indirectly so, appearing on the one hand as biological inertia concerning predator-prey dynamics, and on the other hand as psychological dominator-dominated schemes in the social and egoic context. As a result of the human being's combination of biological and psychological stages, we have witnessed an almost permanent state of turmoil and conflict throughout our history, manifested in continuous territorial struggles, cultural and religious clashes, racial tensions, as well as economic, gender and social class inequalities. In spite of everything, empathy and compassion have created the counterpoint that has made the continuity of our species possible.
It is often said that compassion is a form of love, although this conception is biased due to ideals that come from the low level of emotional development in which we still find ourselves as a species. As it has been a necessary step in our evolution, the problem is that compassion is born of pity towards the other, which in turn has its origin in pity towards oneself. For this reason, Emoenergetica explains that compassion actually originates in sadness, since this is the emotion in charge of recognizing losses, needs and emptiness – that is to say, what one does not have because one has not lost it or because one has not achieved it – both in oneself and, empathetically, in others. Giving always begins with losing something of oneself so that the other can have it. In any event, it is equally true that, while sadness is the predominant emotion in compassion, love also plays a part, as it is responsible for the feeling of unity with the receiver of our compassion. Yet, the key here is to understand, or at least to accept, that it is only possible to feel pity for someone if you feel pity for yourself. This pity occurs because we are people and we have an ego, which has the ability to feed itself by stimulating its pillars: the feelings of inferiority, superiority, personal importance and offense.
Just as the human era, marked by evolution in the psychological field, aims to overcome animal instincts, the goal of the transpersonal era will be to stop being a person, in order to reach the next step of evolution. The path of the warrior leads towards and enters into the transpersonal realm, otherwise it is the path of nonsense or at best of entertainment. On the true path there is a stage that every aspirant must reach: the place of no pity. This is misunderstood and even feared by most people. In the transpersonal stage, perception does not have the same limits and syntax as those of the social person. One of the essential steps to transcend the egoic stage and to go towards what is beyond, is to stop feeling sorry for oneself and, once this milestone is reached, it is not possible to continue to feel sorry for others either. We are bubbles of energy, clusters of emotions traveling through infinity. Once this realization has taken place, one cannot keep on harbouring pity towards any being. To compensate for their lack of compassion, warriors of conscience practice kindness. People should also practice it: someone who has no compassion and lacks kindness is not advanced, they are simply unsavoury or psychopathic.
True kindness is the essential virtue that comes from love and is therefore felt as sweetness. In its transcendent form it is supreme love, the respect for all beings, since they are equal in quality, as they are all containers of a portion of infinity, representing each one a unique possibility of experience, knowledge, understanding and skills. All beings are consciousness of being, none is small or worthless before the shining eyes of a warrior of light.
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Empathy, Compassion and Kindness by Chema Sanz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.