Swami Vivekananda in London 3 - Why one feels compassionate

Translated from Mahendranath Datta's "London e Vivekananda".

Swamiji said in one of his lectures, that many European scholars try to explain philanthropy in different ways. Some says that people try to help others and feel compassionate about others because one thinks that the same misfortune may befall him or her. Therefore to get rid of that possibility we help others. Others say that probably one had been in the same situation in the past. By seeing the plight of another, one remembers one's own experience and therefore try to help others. Others says that if we do not help each other there will be chaos in the society. Nobody would be able to work as the cohesiveness of the society will be destroyed. No sympathy for others would imply that there is also no sympathy for me from others and hence extreme selfishness will result in not doing any work together, thus destroying the fabric of social harmony. In order to prevent that society has evolved into a system which has enforced a discipline of mutual help and kindness. 

Swamiji said that ancient Indians viewed this from a different perspective. The Rishis saw the same Brahman in every being. The Brahman has manifested itself in the world as different substances and beings. Whatever we have in our self, the same exists in other selves. Therefore all selves are basically the expression of one vast Self. We exist in every being. Therefore when we see plight, misery in others, we naturally feel compassionate, because we know that the suffering being is nothing but our own selves suffering in a different form. I want thus to help myself, to eradicate my own misery, my own grief. I serve myself. My own ego ("I" ness) is reflected in others and hence while serving others, or feeling compassionate for others I actually feel for myself, my own plight in a different form, different body and mind. The feeling of compassion proves that world is interconnected at the level of consciousness, otherwise one would have never felt for others, had they been disconnected from each other.