What a huge challenge it is to remain compassionate in a world that seems to be driven deeper and deeper into polarity. Compassion is a way of thinking, without attachment to outcomes. It is the witnessing of events without the polarized judgment as to rightness or wrongness. And it would appear to go against the very grain of our conditioning.

From the time we are able to understand the word ‘no’, we have been programmed to think in terms of good/bad, right/wrong, winner/loser, and hero/villain. With adolescence there may come a temporary rebellious shift in those polarities, so that what society thinks is ‘bad’ becomes ‘good’, but still, the polarity is there. We have learned to take sides. This gives an artificial sense of security; this certainty we have about what is right and wrong, especially when we place ourselves firmly on the side of what is right. However, it then becomes complicated.

As we grow, we come to see that there does not appear to be only one rulebook. Other individuals, groups or nations may have a different definition of what is right, and in order to maintain our ‘rightness’ we have to define them as ‘wrong’. Labeling an individual or group as ‘wrong’ seems to somehow justify all manner of behaviors towards them. The problem is, they have defined us as ‘wrong’, thereby justifying all manner of behaviors towards us.

Now, the war is on. It may not start off as a war, but rather with a simple sense of separation. Separation encourages judgment, as we focus on differences, rather than the commonalities of our humanness. As things escalate, the result is behaviors and environments that do not support healthy human evolution. On an individual level, conflict and polarity affect the immune system, compromising physical and emotional health. On a planetary level, conflict and polarity result in death and destruction. How can we not take sides in the face of apparent evil? How can we release attachment to outcomes? The pull back into polarity is very strong.

Maybe it is a little like helping to settle a squabble between your children. It is possible to objectively develop solutions without taking sides, and without having strong emotional reactions or identification with one child or the other. The wise, compassionate parent explores solutions, while maintaining love and connection with both parties. This is the only way the parent can avoid exacerbating whatever rivalries or animosities exist between the children. If the parent is mature and emotionally healthy, and has loving concern for both children, this is easily done. It becomes a little harder when the adversary is a neighborhood friend, rather than a sibling, because our loyalties begin to kick in. If it is child on the playground that we don’t even know, compassion may fly out the window completely.

The stronger the pull into polarity, the greater the opportunity to grow into our highest human capabilities through resisting that pull. Of course bullies must be controlled, and terrorism stopped. The real question is whether we can, in our own hearts, resist the temptation to be like them. No matter what the gains, there is no victory in becoming ‘sanitized’ versions of them. We have to look at the bigger picture, and figure out, as a species, how we can transcend the polarities that we create in our minds. We must endeavor to really understand all of the forces involved in creating the outcomes we see in our world. We need to hear the voices of the wise elders (who are not always old, by the way), in our human tribe.

Most of all, we ourselves, can become compassionate beings. In doing so, at the very least, we are not tipping the scales of polarity. We can feel quite helpless as we watch events unfold in our world. We are not, however, powerless. We each have the free will to become the embodiment of what we want to see in the world. As we do so, we become an anchor for a new way of being. Hopefully we will make it to the next evolutionary level, even if we have to do it one compassionate heart at a time.

Gwen Randall-Young is a psychotherapist and author of Dancing Soul: The Voice of Spirit Evolving. She has also written Echoes Through Time: A Message of Healing for Men, Baby Soul: A Blessing of Spirit, and produced audiocassettes entitled, After Recess: A Calming Meditation for the Elementary School Classroom, Healing the Past: A Meditation for Wholeness, and A World of Kindness: Experiencing Personal and Global Harmony

gwendall@shaw.ca