Why should we feel each other’s suffering and joy?

Question from the Internet:

“If the majority of the people in this world are indifferent to the suffering of others, would it make sense to follow in their footsteps and behave the exact same way as them?”

Sorry to say that, but by default, we are all indifferent to the suffering of others, regardless of what we say or claim.

We can’t even feel, or comprehend the suffering or joy of others since we are not born with this ability!

By default, we can only feel and measure our own suffering and joy, since our consciousness and perception of reality are 100% egocentric, subjective, and individualistic. We simply cannot accept and compute from reality anything that is beyond our totally self-serving and self-justifying needs and calculations.

So in order to actually become interested and feel the suffering and joy of others, we would need to extend the original scope of our perception of reality and our consciousness, so beyond the egocentric and subjective self, it would also expand into the needs, desires, and viewpoints of others.

This is what the ancient, oft-mentioned but never actually used the principle of “love another as yourself” actually means.

Why would we ever want to feel others as ourselves, why would we ever want to love and serve others as ourselves? What would we gain from such a new consciousness and perception?

First of all, as we have evolved into a globally integrated and totally interdependent world, without expanding our consciousness and perception of each other — so we would start existing and behaving like a single “super-organism” — we will never comprehend, let alone solve the mounting global problems that are now threatening our survival.

But safeguarding our physical survival is only the start.

By gradually expanding our consciousness and perception through each other, and by building and tangibly sensing a subsequent “collective consciousness” and composite perception, we would also elevate our life experience in a qualitative way.

In the end, we would liberate ourselves from all the inherently egocentric, subjective, and individualistic limitations of time, space, and the feeling of physical life and death, since we would not associate our existence with our personal biological bodies any longer.

This is something very real and something we can all easily achieve, here and now, through the right method and by mutually helping each other in the right environment.