Shall you cultivate compassion or dispassion? My first reaction is to exclaim there are no virtues that need to be cultivated – just look and see the Truth! Yet, exhortation does little good as blanket advice. I risk falling into neo-advaitist platitudes: you are already enlightened, there is nothing to be done, etc.
There is a reason(s) you are not aware of Reality. There is a block between you and the Truth. Manifestly some people are aware of a deeper aspect of their self, and spend their lives helping others discover the same.
In my present experience, a look within my mind reveals what is behind the black wall of the self/personality/mind. This redirection of attention should yield the same result for you, yet probably does not. In my past, a thousand exhortations to look within would not have revealed what is now present within me. As John Wren-Lewis says, there is a malfunction in consciousness that need unblocking. The unblocking is unique to each person and may entail cultivating compassion, or may not.
We think of compassion as giving of our selves to benefit another, to the point, perhaps, of throwing our selves on a hand grenade. Yet, if your goal is self-discovery, hand grenades may severely limit your potential for success.
Does compassion entail giving our life for someone already dying, or opening our house to thieves? Does dispassion entail squashing small animals that stumble in our path, or watching children drown?
Will I only pile questions upon the original question, or will I say something useful?
Early on, I tried to cultivate dispassion because it seemed the world was a distraction to the study of the self and mind. I wanted to become indifferent to food, weather, shiny baubles, and sex. Of course, I had a vision of my self as dispassionate and that was not the truth – that was just a flattering screen role. I slowly recognized this and abandoned cultivating dispassion, yet in the process of cultivating dispassion became a more focused, intent seeker.
Later, I tried to cultivate compassion. Unlike my foray into dispassion, this time I did not have an accompanying vision of my self as a compassionate saint. Rather, I suspected that my block to looking deeper within was related to my block to looking deeper without and that exploring compassion would help overcome that block.
I tried to feel what others were feeling, tried to reach out with my mind and find rapport. I tried to reach out to animals and plants as well, tried to feel what (if anything) was out there. The trick was to simply feel what was there and not create what I hoped would be there – to see clearly, not to create. This was very frustrating, since most of the time I felt nothing. Yet sometimes I would, and sometimes would feel a call to act upon that feeling.
Perhaps this seems a far cry from compassion, yet I think true compassion emanates from a dispassionate awareness. Without a clear picture you risk killing people with misguided kindness. Also, by paying attention to what you are feeling, in hopes of feeling an echo of another mind or life, you are looking within.
Paradoxically, I found that compassion and dispassion moved hand in hand as I moved along the spiritual path. You see life and see life encased within other lives, billions of lives that passed the same route. You carry a 400 million year old fossil in your hand as you help someone carry a package to their car. You help a child who fell and scraped his knee, yet notice the cemetery in the background. Think upon the fact that everyone and everything you help and love is transient.
If we embark upon a path of compassion, we must serve without pride in our service. Perhaps recognition of transience helps temper pride. You work even as you suspect the folly of all work – becoming more capable of helping others, yet not mounting a crusade to do so. I see the cultivation of compassion or dispassion as part of a larger quest to be honest regarding what we see and feel within and without.