The world needs empathy more than sympathy

Urdu poet Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi writes: ‘Ye jazba humdardi se badh kar hota hai/ Kisi ke dard ko samajhne se behtar hota hai/ Saare jahan ka dard jab apna lagne lagta hai/ Aur khud ka gham sab se kamtar lagta hai’ – This emotion is greater than sympathy/ It’s profounder than understanding someone’s pain/ When the sorrows of the whole world seem your very own/ Your own grief pales in comparison.

He is referring to empathy in the above quatrain. It’s not for nothing that empathy is known as Sartaaj-e-jazbaat, the supreme of all emotions that binds the world together and goes far deeper than sympathy. It encompasses humanity and pervades the world. It makes us aware of the pains of not just humans but of all the creatures. Jami, often regarded as the last great mystical poet of Iran, coined a word ‘Infiziyaat’ which is still used in Persian mysticism, albeit rarely. It is an equivalent of the Sanskrit word ‘sahmarmita’ – sah+marm: co+marm; emotion that resides in the sanctum sanctorum of every heart.

Now the point is: What’s empathy? Empathy is: ‘You and me are no different/ Each soul is me, each man’s my friend.’ This sublime sense of interconnectivity is possible when the heart is mellowed with love and elevated with empathy; when everything’s your reflection and vice versa. So, be an empathiser because empathy exceeds mere sympathy. While sympathy helps one relate to another person, empathy dissolves that ‘otherness’.

In other words, empathy is alter-egoism. Pakistani Urdu poet Dilawar Figar puts it succinctly, ‘Mujh mein, tujh mein na koi tafawat rahe/ Yoon ek hon ke na koi izaahat rahe’ – There mustn’t be any difference between the two of us/ Let’s become one seamlessly.

‘Koi khaamosh ashk bahaye koson dur/ Meri ankhein geeli na hon, mujhe nahin manzoor’ – Someone shedding tears far away/ How can my eyes remain tearless? wrote Urdu-Persian poet Nashtar. Shed tears but not just for a specific person. Weep for all. Remember, men have shed more tears than all the waters lying in the great oceans. Someone laughing with you is no big deal. If eyes are tearful, when you weep, rest assured, your tears haven’t gone in vain.

It’s empathy that will enable humans to go beyond the self and merge in the sufferings of each and every individual. Much have we sparred over petty things like nation, colour, religion and sects. It’s, therefore, time to allow empathy to permeate and suffuse mankind with a sense of Oneness.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘the universe’. We need to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty, pity and piety. The grief of every individual can be universalised through empathy because the universality of emotions lies in one and only emotion: empathy. Empathy is enlightened self-interest. To quote Roman poet Horace, “When your neighbour’s wall is burning, it becomes your business.” It’s an all-embracing human spirit. We need empathy to evolve collectively. Empathy will help restore the estranged co-existence of yore.