[austintorn@aol.com]

Those who have learned a lot about the human condition, especially those who quest for Everything, see the big picture of life and its stages and connections. This lets one not get annoyed so often and feel OK.

Putting ourselves in the shoes of others when we see hurtful things—empathy—sometimes expands our consciousness, compassion, and love since we can come to know why they did it—the best that their reasoning could do at the stage they are at.

We might have guilt if we didn't feel for others, although not when they are quite hopeless and totally beyond our reach.

When we converse with ourselves, it is our Higher Consciousness—our Conscious Awareness Or 'I', that questions our lower consciousness impulses toward securing, sensation, and power, as well as hurting others through any selfishness.

Strangely, perhaps, this brings happiness, and some evolutionary benefit may follow.

[Profpat]

Hi Greg;

Maybe I'm part of Abou ben Adam's tribe.

I think my actual point was you don't have to be a Christian or a theist to have sympathy and empathy. That is built into mankind according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Morality is the preservation of self AND a natural repugnance at seeing other humans suffer.

I don't believe in a final judgment either. Rather its a daily judgment.

I once posted that the only real remorse I have in my life is when I hurt others. I think this may be true whether you believe in God or not.

Well you have explored it and that is good.

Best to you,

Pat

[Profpat]

Hi Austin;

According to Rousseau again, Ignorance and equality is the very essence of happiness.

I guess that would make MJA is the happiest SOB around ( Nothing personal MJA GOD and I love you dearly ).

Best,

Pat

[Mikal]

Originally Posted by RascalPuff Empathy is frequently confused for 'mind reading'. That is not what the blessing and curse of an extraordinary empath is. The blessing is the clairvoyant vehicularized ability to feel what others feel and to thereby consort with and comfort them - assure veritably suffering individuals and groups that they are not misunderstood or alone. The curse is the pain that the - inadvertant or vigilant - empath feels, in exchange for the emotionallly roller coasting gift that was betrothed them by Nature. The gift and burden of above average empathy is rife with rewards, punishments and charleton pretenders who attempt to duplicitously capitalize on the subject. Clearly, the entire world is in desperate need of more genuine empaths - to contribute to a more caring posture toward those in need of understanding and comfort. Websters: The experiencing of one's own of the feelings of another - the capacity for this. Synonym: Sympathy. Antonym: Insensitivity, arrogance, sadism.

Rascal....I am glad I found your thread here, this is an excellent rendition of empathy and the empath. I was trying to explain in the thread "the root of all evil" that empathy is otherwise a higher expression of feeling than compassion and that the empath feels on a higher level of emotion with others in pain...I kind of feel that compassion is like alignment with anothers pain while empathy is a merging or understanding with another's pain for example when I am in the presence of someone being humiliated I fully rush through their reactions of shame....it sometimes allows me to make a responce to the perpetrator which reveals to them their not too gracious moment...I am then able to attend graciously with the shame of the offended person...

Empathy may be both a reward and a curse but would it be more important to look at this sensitivity as an essential human quality rather than seeing it as a painful liability...it does allow the empath to constructively work on human arrogance...


Peace Mikal