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In the ninth chapter of The Wisdom of the Overself I wrote:
For this notion of love is a sadly limited one. To bestow it only on a
wife or a child, a sweetheart or a sister, is to bestow it in anticipation
of its being returned. Man finds in time that such giving which hopes for
a getting is not enough. Love cannot stop there. It seeks to grow beyond
the restricted circle of a few friends and relations. Life itself leads
him on to transcend it. And this he does firstly, by transcending the lure
of the pitiful transient flesh and secondly, by transforming love into
something nobler and rarer--compassion. In the divine self-giving of this
wonderful quality and in its expansion until all mankind is touched, love
finally fulfils itself.
This last sentence may lead to misunderstanding. The paragraph in which it appears is, I now see, incomplete. For compassion is an emotion felt by one ego when considering the suffering condition of another ego. But spiritual development eventually lifts itself above all emotions, by which I do not of course mean above all feeling. The wish to help another person should not spring out of compassion alone, nor out of the aspiration to do what is right alone, nor out of the satisfaction derived from practising virtue for its own sake alone. It should certainly come out of all these, but it should also come even more out of the breaking down of the ego itself. With that gone, there will be a feeling of oneness with all living creatures. This practice of self-identification with them is the highest form of love.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 2 : Re-Educate Feelings > # 133