T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

he needs to exist and to confirm him. Confession is always anof community 'I. (Doody 1980,4)Compassion provides man with a comprehensive view oflife. It calls for inter-personal responslbillty underscored bylove, authentic empathy and intense understanding. The meaningof compassion could be discovered not in isolation orallenation, but in a reeling of community that one's fate istled up wlth others In pain and pleasure. The term "compassion"has its etymological roots ln the French and Latln expression,flcompasslon" which means "to suffer wlth ". Rollo May, apsychotherapist, aptly Illustrates the tenets of compassion inThe Power and Innocence. He defines compassion as follows :Cornpasslon is the name of that form of love which isbased on our knowlng and understanding each other.Compasslcn is the awareness that we all shall eithersink or swim together. Compassion arises from therecoqnltlon of community. It realizes that all menand women are brothers and sisters, even though adisciplining of our own instincts is necessary forus even to begin to carry out that belief In ouractions. (May 1972,251)The history of the Jews, the so-called "chosen people of God"reveals that they have always been "chosen" either forPersecution or discrlmination. The hideous blood-bath InGermany, the organlsed krlling in the shape of pogroms inRussia, deprivation of rights ln Romania, polltical oppressionand religious persecution in other countries have compelled the