Compassion For People Who Are Different

Only by acknowledging how you fundamentally view the world differently from others can you develop the awareness to have compassion for those who are different from you. Different means everyone you come in contact with.

Being judgmental or critical about others behaviours comes naturally to most of us and we always feel we are right in what we feel about them. Very easily we label people right or wrong. But right or wrong according to who? According to our perspective. The same situation is perceived differently by different people and we are not able to understand them because we can only see things through our perspective. Our perspective is created based on our sanskars and past experiences.

These sanskars become the lens through which we will see the situation. Different people will perceive it differently and we often find ourselves saying – we just don’t understand them! Let us understand that there is no right or wrong, we are just different. Parents are right, children are wrong; Husband is right, wife is wrong; Boss is right, subordinate is wrong – these rights and wrongs make us withdraw our trust and respect in relationships. We are only different, each of us is carrying different sanskars and can see the situation only through the lens of our own sanskars and so each of us is always right from our perspective.

When we start seeing each one with this understanding we will shift from criticism to compassion, and our love and respect for them will remain constant. However unreasonable we might find them, let us remember they are feeling and behaving through their sanskars and so they are absolutely right.