Prowling through the archives of every major religion, at some point one will find a reference to what the Buddhists and Christians have popularized as "universal compassion"; inevitably, the religious leaders of a time long past the founding of their religion state this is the objective of that religion. And why not? The idea that we care about everybody, and leave nobody out, suggests encircled spiritual wagons ready to ward off death, terror, sadness and loss.

However, it's possible we are misinterpreting the phrase because we bring our own expectations to the religion more than we learn from interpreting it. "Universal compassion," after all, can mean two things: it can mean compassion for everything in the universe, or compassion for the universe itself, as if it were a living and sensing order which when granted the understanding inherent to compassion, will reveal its secrets to the dedicated initiate. In this sense, compassion is fully distinct from pity; one does not grant compassion only to those who need it, but feels a spiritual comradeship with the organizational impetus of the universe. Pity makes the pitier feel better and reminds the pitied of its lower place; compassion for the universe reminds us all that we have but small places in a giant collaborative order.

What emerges from this type of universal compassion is a faith in how things operate in our world and the cosmic order which produced it. It is no longer an alien, threatening mechanism to us, and therefore we do not feel a need to resist it with denial. We see the reasons why things are as they are. This in turn frees us from the prison of individualism, in which people are more afraid of their own death than they are motivated to do what is right by all. With compassion for all things in the universe, we see them as individuals in the mold of ourselves, and our own fear of death and fear of insufficiency ("fear of natural selection") we project upon them; with compassion for the universe, we see that death and natural selection are necessary and through them we achieve better life -- when we are most mature, we are not begrudging of that sacrifice of ourselves so that the universal order can be healthier.

Most of us who are not defective have a great deal of compassion. When we see another creature, whether a stalk of corn or a furry kitten or someone who works where we do, we are filled with good feelings and hopes for this person: we understand that life for them as for all of us is a struggle, and we admire their strengths and adaptations, and we wish them the best for the future. This compassion is an excellent and sustaining thing, but much as all medicines are poisonous in the wrong doses, it can go too far. To love our fellow creatures (and plants) is a wonderful thing, but it paralyzes us when we are unwilling to act in a way that will disappoint or terminate them, even if that action would have made the world better. We must have universal compassion and do first what is right for the betterment of order on earth and in the heavens, and only secondarily let our compassion guide us to treat all individual life forms well, because from a distance, our universe itself is a life-form deserving compassion before any of its components.