Text of the meditation
Lack of sympathy arises in egotism; sympathy arises in love. Sympathy leads us to the hearts of all people, so that we become spiritually united to them, and when they suffer we feel the pain; when they are glad, we rejoice with them; when they are despised and persecuted, we spiritually descend with them into the depths, and take into our hearts their humiliation and distress; and one who has this binding, uniting spirit of sympathy can never be cynical and condemnatory, can never pass thoughtless and cruel judgments upon their fellows, because in their tenderness of heart they are ever with them in their pain.
But to have reached this ripened sympathy, it must be that they have loved much, suffered much, and sounded the dark depths of sorrow. It springs from acquaintance with the profoundest experiences, so that a person has had conceit, thoughtlessness and selfishness burnt out of their heart.
Sympathy, in its real and profound sense, is oneness with others in their strivings and sufferings.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
