Radhanath Swami on The Higher Principle

Spirituality teaches us to focus on the higher principles. The higher principle is to consider another person’s suffering as our sufferings and another person’s happiness as our happiness. The principle of real compassion is to serve others without selfish motives. It should be without any ego because where there is selfish egoistic motivation, ‘I’ becomes the center of the universe, and we develop a mindset where we think what pleases me is good and what does not please me is not good. But the problem with that situation is there will be many conditions which are beyond our control. We can neither control people nor could we control destiny, nor can we control the weather or the economy because we have very little control in this world. But if there is no selfishness then our relationships with others will be very strong and nothing would break the inner joy and the happiness of our relationships. Once we harmonize our differences on a higher principle based on the principle of love and compassion then there will be no conflict and we will always experience inner bliss and ecstasy.