by Kathy Gann

Beloved theosophical teacher Joy Mills wrote, “Compassion is the goal of the spiritual journey.” One True Adventure, p. 124. If compassion is our goal, how can we realize it most effectively? Joy said our task is to “transform kama-manas into buddhi-manas”—to move from a mind driven by desire to a mind illumined by love. One way to support this shift is to pay conscious attention to our identity. We can regularly examine our thoughts, motives, and actions by asking: “Am I identified right now with my desire-mind, or with my illumined, loving mind?” Practiced consistently, this question can help us identify more often with the illumined, loving mind.

Noticing the difference

• Desire-mind: seeks to benefit “me and mine.”
• Illumined, loving mind: seeks the highest good of all.

As with any discipline, shifting our identity from the personal to the transcendent takes time and persistent effort. It is encouraging to know that the “highest good of all” necessarily includes what is best for ourselves, too—so, in truth, nothing is sacrificed or lost as we shift our identity to the illumined mind.

Annie Besant, always the pragmatist, suggested developing compassion in a way that is easy to overlook.  She said that the more unlovable a person’s traits and behaviors are, the more they need our love.  Putting this into practice can be, at best, challenging. Still, the world offers us bountiful opportunities to keep trying.

In The Voice of the Silence, HPB declared that “Compassion is no attribute.  It is the Law of Laws—eternal harmony...the law of love eternal.”  When we understand compassion as the eternal harmony and essential nature of the Universe, it becomes clear that our task is not simply to develop compassion within us, but to literally and truly become compassion.  As we gradually grow into purer and more complete expressions of universal compassion, we come full circle back to Joy’s teaching, finding that we are ever more fully identified with the mind illumined by love.