Empathy

Bhakti Yoga is one of the branches of the Integral Yoga tradition. Bhakti is typically associated with a devotional aspect. The Bhakti Yoga at Lotus Blau Integral Yoga deals with themes such as empathy, compassion, care, faith, giving of oneself, surrendering, opening of the heart, and love.
These are topics that those who follow this spiritual path take into consideration throughout every day, but we must look at these concepts closely in order to understand them a little bit more and in this way we can little by little deepen and advance our personal development.

Empathy refers to having the capacity to share and understand the feelings of another person. Empathy does not debilitate us when we are in balance, but in the world of the ego imbalance is normal. We then isolate ourselves, so as not to suffer, when facing a situation where there is suffering involved, and we close our hearts. Empathy is an essential part of compassion, which we could define as profound awareness of the suffering of others together with the desire to alleviate that suffering. To be able to reach full compassion we must practice empathy. Empathy is hindered by selfishness or egoism, as well as the separation from our environment. To be able to have more empathy, we must open up and dare to live, thinking beyond one’s personal life project. Dare to look and learn from life from those who are around us. It’s about having the interest to enter other people’s world visions, putting aside our personal interests, prejudices, judgments, and our personal world-view. Then we can carry out the practice of empathy on a daily basis, which will help us to open our hearts to the world around us and connect with the deepest part of our being.

David Nagavajra Urgeles