Play your part in uplifting the world. Just play your part. Serve. Contribute. Yet you are not looking to become the savior of the world. That is too much for you to take on.

You serve, yet you can't take everyone's difficulties into your heart. Be compassionate without tearing yourself apart. What difficulties belong to another do not belong to you, and, yet, you are not heartless. You cannot take on others' problems as your own because that helps no one. If someone is lame, you are not to become lame too.

You are not Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders. Give service to the Universe and maintain your own well-being.

How do you reconcile helping the world if you add your suffering to the suffering that already is? How do you give compassion to the world and not have your heart ache? How much help are you giving the world when your heart is aching?

How did the Great Spiritual Ones do it? Their compassion was great, and, yet, they did not take on the suffering. They rose above the suffering, and so those they served suffered less. Of course, the Great Ones had a vaster view of the horizon. And so must you.

Buddha had great compassion and yet was a Laughing Buddha. Who had more joy in his service to mankind than such a one as Buddha? He surmounted the level of suffering.

There is no joy in suffering. There is no advantage except the opportunity it gives to cease suffering. Everyone who suffers has to rise above it. Suffering is not admirable. When you hurt your heart for the sake of another's pain, what help are you giving?

Be kind to everyone. Send compassion to all around the world, and, yet do not a co-sufferer be. Compassion is not suffering, beloveds.

Some people over-indulge in eating. Some overindulge in compassion. Compassion means to rise to a higher level. It does not mean to adopt others' suffering as your own.

When you suffer, you help no one. The Great Ones did not over-do nor were they indifferent.

When someone cuts himself, you are not to cut yourself. When someone bleeds, you are not to bleed as well. What is this? It is not greater compassion.

Be compassionate. Take action. Serve. Help, and keep your own heart high. Keep your own heart high.

It is not selfless for you to suffer when there is already enough suffering in the world. If you are to alleviate suffering, you must alleviate suffering, not take it on.

Have empathy and not be consumed in empathy.

The surgeon does not help the one he performs an operation on by weeping. The surgeon is not a robot. He has a heart, and yet he keeps his heart intact. He has to. He can love. He can be compassionate. He cannot perform his operations on himself. A surgeon does not help others by succumbing to their surgery.

Now that this is understood, there is still the question of how. How do you give compassion and yet not take on the suffering? How does one accomplish this? Even with your best efforts, how do you accomplish this? How do you gain such balance? How do you give compassion to someone with a rash without developing a rash yourself?

First, have the idea that you can be compassionate without being the most compassionate person in the world. Have a different definition of compassion than you may have had. Compassion is strength, not pity.