Compassion

We wake up to the reality of the human world only when we have paid a price for our naivety and carelessness. We are simply weak when it comes to reversing or resisting forces of evil. We simply do not know how to say no to what pleases us and seduces our senses. And the forces of evil know our weakness; this is why everything that destroys us always comes showing us that side of itself that is seductive to our senses. If poison had a bitter taste, many of us would not die of accidental poisoning. This is why even danger has a seductive and exciting side. Whenever we survive an accident or a danger, our senses glorify themselves. We relish the impression that we have proved our power or at least our know-how. Evil knows how to approach us; it knows how to hypnotize our consciousness, so that it lets us accept what our wisdom would reject. 

Kemetic education insists that we do not do anything for others. It presents an egotistical act as a noble one and says that all is a matter of dimensions of the world we take into consideration. If the human being is practically incapable of living alone in nature, then protecting other humans is no longer an act of generosity but an act of necessity for our own survival. Even the smallest help we bring to others opens a returning channel that is material or non-material. Kemetic priests have for a very long time taught the concept of a dialogue of energies. The human being always enters into a dialogue with everything he perceives. That dialogue takes place among cosmic and interstellar dialogues of energies. Everything is a dialogue and an exchange of energies. If I make a gift to my neighbor, it is only my arrogance that makes me see what I am giving instead of also seeing what I am receiving from the one I make the gift to. To ignore this reality of the dialogue of energies is to surrender oneself to forces of evil. The only reason we are not sensitive to what we receive from the person we are giving to is that we feel we are better than them. It is difficult for the human being to resist the idea of being better than his neighbor. By succumbing to the idea that we are better than our neighbor, we mistake as the universe what is but a narrow dimension-- our relationship with the individual we are considering. We usually wake up from this illusion only when the reality of the universe hits us very hard on the nose. 

The story I am going to tell is a very old legend. It is the story of two donkeys with their master. It was very long ago when merchants were traveling up and down the Kemetic continent from one community to another to buy and sell what they could. One merchant first had a donkey, and for a long time he traveled across the continent. He bought and sold. His business grew. He also realized that his donkey was growing old. Since he was buying more and more goods, he decided to buy a second donkey. The new donkey was a lot younger and stronger, and had no problem with the load or the distance he had to cover. He takes the lead and mocks the slowness of the older donkey. One day while they were crossing the Sahara desert, the old donkey while out of breath spoke to the younger donkey in these words: "Young donkey", he said between two breaths, "I am old and tired, I would like you to help me by taking half of my load." The young donkey turned his head and with a mocking attitude asked him, "And why should I carry half of your load?" The old donkey replied in a pleading, "I am very drained. If you carry half of my load to the next oasis, I shall take it back after I am able to drink and rest." The young donkey pretended to be thinking before he answered in a proud tone, "Hmm. No! Everyone should carry their own load." And he continued his march, very proud of his strength and resistance. The old donkey forced himself but he ran out of strength, fell down, and died. The group stopped. The merchant tried in vain to resuscitate the old donkey. The young donkey looked at the master who then was taking the load off the dead donkey. After a moment's hesitation, he grabbed the rope of the young donkey and pulled it and brought it closer. He then started placing the loads of the old donkey on the young one. After he had attached the two loads onto the young donkey's back, they resumed their walk towards the oasis. The young donkey was having difficulties walking, and while he was walking he told himself that if he had agreed to help the old donkey, he would be carrying only half his present load. Now he is forced to carry the entire load of the old donkey because he had refused to help him. 

It is true that compassion also has its rewards. One needs only to enlarge the dimension of the world that we perceive. We truly do not do anything for others. Everything we do, we do for ourselves. Nothing is lost and everything transforms. Our pity for the neighbor and his suffering will transform into his pity for our suffering. There is in the archives of Kemetic texts a story about compassion that I find very instructive. It comes from the library of the temple of Heptaka (Memphis). The story was unfolding during the reign of one of the Ramses. That Ramses was a warrior king forced to create a great army that he would send to fight in many regions of the world for his power and prestige. The priest said that one day while he was working in the temple, an old lady approached him and wanted to talk. She was visibly troubled, confused, and in a state of deep depression. The priest received her in the prayer room. 

The lady explained that she had just lost her only son on the battlefield. While she was talking, she could not withhold her tears. Her voice was shaky and everything about her showed pain and desperation. After she told her story, she added this; "Neteru (the gods) gave me only this son, and I was counting on him to bury me at my death and conduct my funeral. But now it is I who have to witness the death of the same person I brought into this world." The priest was very touched by her lamentations. He offered to say prayers that help the passages of the Ka of her son into the Imentet (the world in which we go to after dying). But the lady looked very sadly at him and said, "This is not what I am coming to ask for." The priest was very touched by the situation of the lady but he did not know what else to do. He then had the idea of asking her what she expected from him and the temple. The lady answered after a long silence, "My son... I want my son. I would like you to bring him back to life. I need my son. I want you to bring him back out of Imentet..." 

The priest had been expecting everything except this kind of request. He controlled himself so well that he did not show a single reaction of surprise. He then asked the lady to come back and see him the next morning. A light of hope could now be seen in the eyes of the lady. She thanked him before she left. The priest spent the rest of his day meditating on the situation and wondering what he should do to at least diminish the pain and desperation of the lady. He knew that in some cases people become so desperate that they commit suicide. He had to find a way to make her accept even the death of those we love as part of life. Afterthought, we always end up wondering why the Neteru (gods) gave the human being the sense of attachment, knowing that we do not solve the problem of our mortality and of how fragile life is. What wisdom is there in the fact that we accept loving others or being loved by them, despite the fact that we are all mortals? And every time one of us dies, we suffer because we are forced to reconsider our surroundings to re-adapt and re-attach to those who are left, until the day death comes back and snatches them too, one by one... and each time we are not the least bit prepared. 

The priest did not sleep that night. He thought of what he was going to say to the lady. She had made it very clear what she wanted. She wanted her son to be brought back to life. The priest got up early the next morning. He had not closed one eye the entire night. He continued his meditation until the moment his wife brought him his breakfast. After he ate, he took the path towards the temple, knowing what awaited him. On his arrival, the lady was sitting at the door of the temple. She too had not slept. She had come to wait at the door of the temple since the first sounds of the roosters. When she saw the priest arriving, she got up and, very excited, greeted him. 

The priest called her to the working room and said: "For your case, Madam, we must cook a magic potion that will bring your son back to life. You must bring me seeds of a special pepper, the pepper that has grown in a house that did not know any desperation or misfortune." The lady listened very carefully and then asked: "Is that all?" "Yes, that is all," answered the priest: "Find me at least any plant that grows in the house that did not know any affliction or cry and I will use it for the potion that will bring your son back to life." 

The lady got up very excited; she left in search of the special pepper. She quickly developed a strategy. She decided to visit first the castles and the big houses of wealthy families. Every time she reached a house, she would ask the question: "Did your house know any misfortune?" The inhabitants quickly became sad and told what happened to them, the dearest people that they had lost, the illnesses, accidents, treasons, betrayals...etc. Everywhere she went, every house, every family and every individual had a sad story. She started developing compassion towards the others and what had happened to them. She spent months and months passing through the world, listening to the stories of others and trying to see how she could help them survive the misfortune that happened to them. 

The priest at the temple waited in vain for the return of the lady. The years passed; he was starting to forget that story, when one morning the lady showed up at the temple with a large smile on her face. She said she came to thank him for the help he provided: "I was so blinded by my pain that I forgot to see what was happening to others," she said. The priest was very happy to see the new perspective the lady had adopted. He said: "Isn't it that every person thinks that his burden is the heaviest? But if we take the time to see what burdens others are carrying, this will only help us accept whatever the universe brings us."  All is really a matter of the dimension of the world we are looking at. The world we want to see is up to us to build. We must be the image of what we want to see. Let's be good if we want to benefit from the good of the world.