sympathy

159:3.11Teach all be­liev­ers to avoid lean­ing upon the in­se­cure props of false sym­pa­thy. You can­not de­velop strong char­ac­ters out of the in­dul­gence of self-pity; hon­estly en­deavor to avoid the de­cep­tive in­flu­ence of mere fel­low­ship in mis­ery. Ex­tend sym­pa­thy to the brave and coura­geous while you with­hold over­much pity from those cow­ardly souls who only half­heart­edly stand up be­fore the tri­als of liv­ing. Of­fer not con­so­la­tion to those who lie down be­fore their trou­bles with­out a strug­gle. Sym­pa­thize not with your fel­lows merely that they may sym­pa­thize with you in re­turn.

159:3.1At Edrei, where Thomas and his as­so­ciates la­bored, Je­sus spent a day and a night and, in the course of the evening’s dis­cus­sion, gave ex­pres­sion to the prin­ci­ples which should guide those who preach truth, and which should ac­ti­vate all who teach the gospel of the king­dom. Sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, Je­sus taught:

156:5.19Avoid dis­hon­esty and un­fair­ness in all your ef­forts to preach truth and pro­claim the gospel. Seek no un­earned rec­og­ni­tion and crave no un­de­served sym­pa­thy. Love, freely re­ceive from both di­vine and hu­man sources re­gard­less of your deserts, and love freely in re­turn. But in all other things re­lated to honor and adu­la­tion seek only that which hon­estly be­longs to you.

159:3.2Al­ways re­spect the per­son­al­ity of man. Never should a righ­teous cause be pro­moted by force; spir­i­tual vic­to­ries can be won only by spir­i­tual power. This in­junc­tion against the em­ploy­ment of ma­te­rial in­flu­ences refers to psy­chic force as well as to phys­i­cal force. Over­pow­er­ing ar­gu­ments and men­tal su­pe­ri­or­ity are not to be em­ployed to co­erce men and women into the king­dom. Man’s mind is not to be crushed by the mere weight of logic or over­awed by shrewd elo­quence. While emo­tion as a fac­tor in hu­man de­ci­sions can­not be wholly elim­i­nated, it should not be di­rectly ap­pealed to in the teach­ings of those who would ad­vance the cause of the king­dom. Make your ap­peals di­rectly to the di­vine spirit that dwells within the minds of men. Do not ap­peal to fear, pity, or mere sen­ti­ment. In ap­peal­ing to men, be fair; ex­er­cise self-con­trol and ex­hibit due re­straint; show proper re­spect for the per­son­al­i­ties of your pupils. Re­mem­ber that I have said: “Be­hold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in.”

171:7.3Je­sus re­ally un­der­stood men; there­fore could he man­i­fest gen­uine sym­pa­thy and show sin­cere com­pas­sion. But he sel­dom in­dulged in pity. While his com­pas­sion was bound­less, his sym­pa­thy was prac­ti­cal, per­sonal, and con­struc­tive. Never did his fa­mil­iar­ity with suf­fer­ing breed in­dif­fer­ence, and he was able to min­is­ter to dis­tressed souls with­out in­creas­ing their self-pity.

149:4.3On this same oc­ca­sion the Mas­ter talked to the group about the de­sir­abil­ity of pos­sess­ing well-bal­anced char­ac­ters. He rec­og­nized that it was nec­es­sary for most men to de­vote them­selves to the mas­tery of some vo­ca­tion, but he de­plored all ten­dency to­ward over­spe­cial­iza­tion, to­ward be­com­ing nar­row-minded and cir­cum­scribed in life’s ac­tiv­i­ties. He called at­ten­tion to the fact that any virtue, if car­ried to ex­tremes, may be­come a vice. Je­sus al­ways preached tem­per­ance and taught con­sis­tency—pro­por­tion­ate ad­just­ment of life prob­lems. He pointed out that over­much sym­pa­thy and pity may de­gen­er­ate into se­ri­ous emo­tional in­sta­bil­ity; that en­thu­si­asm may drive on into fa­nati­cism. He dis­cussed one of their for­mer as­so­ciates whose imag­i­na­tion had led him off into vi­sion­ary and im­prac­ti­cal un­der­tak­ings. At the same time he warned them against the dan­gers of the dull­ness of over­con­ser­va­tive medi­ocrity.

54:5.98. The Faith­ful of Days on Eden­tia ad­vised the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers to al­low the rebels free course to the end that all sym­pa­thy for these evil­do­ers should be the sooner up­rooted in the hearts of ev­ery pres­ent and fu­ture cit­i­zen of Nor­la­ti­adek—ev­ery mor­tal, mor­ontia, or spirit crea­ture.

54:5.109. On Je­ru­sem the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Su­preme Ex­ec­u­tive of Or­von­ton coun­seled Ga­briel to fos­ter full op­por­tu­nity for ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture to ma­ture a de­lib­er­ate choice in those mat­ters in­volved in the Lu­cifer Dec­la­ra­tion of Lib­erty. The is­sues of re­bel­lion hav­ing been raised, the Par­a­dise emer­gency ad­viser of Ga­briel por­trayed that, if such full and free op­por­tu­nity were not given all Nor­la­ti­adek crea­tures, then would the Par­a­dise quar­an­tine against all such pos­si­ble half­hearted or doubt-stricken crea­tures be ex­tended in self-pro­tec­tion against the en­tire con­stel­la­tion. To keep open the Par­a­dise doors of as­cen­sion to the be­ings of Nor­la­ti­adek, it was nec­es­sary to pro­vide for the full de­vel­op­ment of re­bel­lion and to in­sure the com­plete de­ter­mi­na­tion of at­ti­tude on the part of all be­ings in any way con­cerned there­with.

54:5.1110. The Di­vine Min­is­ter of Sal­ving­ton is­sued as her third in­de­pen­dent procla­ma­tion a man­date di­rect­ing that noth­ing be done to half cure, cow­ardly sup­press, or oth­er­wise hide the hideous vis­age of rebels and re­bel­lion. The an­gelic hosts were di­rected to work for full dis­clo­sure and un­lim­ited op­por­tu­nity for sin-ex­pres­sion as the quick­est tech­nique of achiev­ing the per­fect and fi­nal cure of the plague of evil and sin.

54:5.1211. An emer­gency coun­cil of ex-mor­tals con­sist­ing of Mighty Mes­sen­gers, glo­ri­fied mor­tals who had had per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with like sit­u­a­tions, to­gether with their col­leagues, was or­ga­nized on Je­ru­sem. They ad­vised Ga­briel that at least three times the num­ber of be­ings would be led astray if ar­bi­trary or sum­mary meth­ods of sup­pres­sion were at­tempted. The en­tire Uversa corps of coun­selors con­curred in ad­vis­ing Ga­briel to per­mit the re­bel­lion to take its full and nat­u­ral course, even if it should re­quire a mil­lion years to wind up the con­se­quences.

52:6.42. In­tel­lec­tual cross-fer­til­iza­tion. Broth­er­hood is im­pos­si­ble on a world whose in­hab­i­tants are so prim­i­tive that they fail to rec­og­nize the folly of un­mit­i­gated self­ish­ness. There must oc­cur an ex­change of na­tional and racial lit­er­a­ture. Each race must be­come fa­mil­iar with the thought of all races; each na­tion must know the feel­ings of all na­tions. Ig­no­rance breeds sus­pi­cion, and sus­pi­cion is in­com­pat­i­ble with the es­sen­tial at­ti­tude of sym­pa­thy and love.

149:4.4And then Je­sus dis­coursed on the dan­gers of cour­age and faith, how they some­times lead un­think­ing souls on to reck­less­ness and pre­sump­tion. He also showed how pru­dence and dis­cre­tion, when car­ried too far, lead to cow­ardice and fail­ure. He ex­horted his hear­ers to strive for orig­i­nal­ity while they shunned all ten­dency to­ward ec­cen­tric­ity. He pleaded for sym­pa­thy with­out sen­ti­men­tal­ity, piety with­out sanc­ti­mo­nious­ness. He taught rev­er­ence free from fear and su­per­sti­tion.