"Now the healing of the king is to be achieved by the nature and spirit of compassion. Compassion. Schopenhauer asks the question - how is it that an individual can experience and respond to the pain of another as though it were his own? To such an extent that he will forget his own well-being, forget his own safety, to save that other? He says the reason that is done and can be done and experienced is that it's the truth. That you and that other are metaphysically one.
Tat Tvam Asi.
There is the one being of which you are two aspects. And when you are defending yourself, fighting for the you that you know, you are defending the lesser aspect of yourself. But when you feel compassion - suffering with - you have experienced the metaphysical truth that you and that other are, indeed, one. So the feeling of compassion is the breakthrough to the religious experience." - Joseph Campbell
