True compassion saves the soul through Krishna consciousness, not mere external relief from suffering.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.7 — June 15, 1975, Honolulu Sunday Feast Lecture 750615SB-HONOLULU [42:58 Minutes] SB-06.01.07_750615SB-HONOLULU Prabhupāda: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. [chants with devotees responding] [chants verse word for word with devotees responding] na ced ihaivāpacitiṁ yathāṁhasaḥ kṛtasya kuryān mana-ukta-pāṇibhiḥ dhruvaṁ sa vai pretya narakān upaiti ye kīrtitā me bhavatas tigma-yātanāḥ [SB 6.1.7] So last week we discussed Parīkṣit Mahārāja's sympathy with the suffering humanity.
This is Vaiṣṇava. The Vaiṣṇava, or devotee, he is the perfect sympathizer for all suffering humanity. Others' sympathy is not perfect. They are planning so many things—opening hospitals or charitable dispensaries, schools, lunatic asylum.
These are all public sympathetic activities. But they are not... They are, of course, good to some extent. If a man is suffering from the bodily ailments, if he is given some relief in the hospital, or if the society is not educated, give him education, this is all good work undoubtedly.
But the ultimate good work is not known to them. They are taking care of the external symptoms. Why a person, a living entity, is put into that condition? And if that condition is ended, that is real sympathy.
A person is suffering from some disease. He goes to the doctor, physician. He gives some medicine—immediate some relief from the pain. This is one sympathy.
And there is another sympathy, that "Why the man is getting such disease and suffering? Why not stop the cause of the disease?" That is real sympathy. Now, we can see in our front, there is a tree standing for many years, and he has to stand in scorching heat, torrents of rain, pinching cold. He cannot move an inch. And if we think seriously, "Suppose if I would have been put into that condition, that 'Stand up here for five hundred or five thousand years.
You cannot move an inch, and you bear all the sufferings, scorching heat, storm,' would I agree to do that?" No. I will not agree. But the tree is also a living entity. He is a living being.