This candle in front of me looks like an angel—two wings stretching out of its flame. But the wings appear deformed. Or at least, my mind notices their deformation. I think that’s because of a conditioning I carry—about angels being perfectly gorgeous, Hollywood-like beings. There’s an idealized image in my mind: a well-kempt man, close-cropped hair, strong jaw, white skin, white swan-like wings. But in reality, I suspect angels often look quite deformed, even scary. More like the figures you see on Thai temples or in Tibetan iconography. And maybe what I saw wasn’t even an angel. Maybe it was a demonic being. But I’m quite certain—deep in my gut—that what I saw was a deity, not a demon.

It feels a little odd to write so casually about these things. But I’ve found a newfound fearlessness after encountering and interacting with the spirit realm. I’m grateful for that. The foundation of this fearlessness is the firm sense that all beings are familiar with suffering—and all beings respond well to compassion. Compassion, at its core, is not hard. It’s one of the most natural states of being. The challenges we experience around it often come from the near enemy of compassion, which is what I want to explore here.

Compassion can look like a simple “no, thank you.” But that kind of No can require a lot of inner work to arrive at. I feel compassion for how difficult it can feel to get to that place. Compassion doesn’t mean saying yes to everyone or everything. You don’t have to accept anyone’s invitation to connect with you—whether it’s a demonic being attempting to infest you, or a human being coming at you with anger. Both are attempts at connection, in their own way. But you don’t have to accept that invitation.

Demonic beings can only infest those who—at some deep level—call for infestation. Because at that level, they believe they’re unworthy of a good life. I strongly believe that everyone deserves a good life in a radiant, healthy body.

The near enemy of Compassion is Pity. I’m grateful to a local yoga teacher for reminding me of this teaching during a recent class. This comes from the concept of the Brahma Viharas—expansive, nourishing states for the body and mind. Compassion is one of the Brahma Viharas. And each Brahma Vihara has a near enemy: something that resembles the true state, but isn’t it. It’s important to discern the near enemy, or else you miss the real experience.

Pity is not Compassion.

Compassion is authentic & connective. Even when you’re expressing a “No,” if it comes from compassion, your heart remains open. That openness creates connection from afar—even if you don’t want further interaction through speech, touch, or other means in that moment.

To express this kind of “No,” you need clarity. You need to know whether you actually want to connect with this person or not. And that clarity, in my experience as a man, comes from a three-way listening: heart (safety), cock (impulse), and mind (wisdom). When these three are integrated, I know what works for me and what doesn’t. I can express a “No” and let them know what isn’t working for me in connection. Depending upon how that is received, I have the option of helping the other person stay connected with me in a way that works but that can only happen—if the other person is willing to listen, is open to change, has the capacity to change with me, and I have the desire and capacity to support that change. That’s a tall order. In many cases, one of these is not true and then the compassionate response is a “No, thank you”.

A compassionate “No” is sometimes the most beautiful, authentic way to connect. Some of my greatest moments of received wisdom have come when women have compassionately said No to me—from a place of clarity. For those of us with a history of sexual abuse, the word No can carry a painful charge. In our past, our strongest “No” may have been violated, thereby associating “No” with an energy of violence. Receiving a “No” that comes from compassion and clarity can therefore be healing as it bridges the internal divide. The sound of “No” stops being internally associated with violent energy.

I see Pity being mistaken for compassion all the time. One space where this is painfully obvious within modern American culture is in the dynamic between the archetypal White Liberal and the clumped-together group labeled as BIPOC. I detest that clumping. Indians are different from East Asians, who are different from Black people, who are quite different from Indigenous people—and each of those terms is already a generalization. The rules around how White people should interact with BIPOC folks feel utterly life-draining to me.

What I often see in those interactions is Pity disguised as Compassion. And it shows up physically—like a glaze in the eyes, as if the person is not really there with you. If you’re attuned, you can feel their consciousness caught in some other plane. Not in connection with you.

And the thing about Pity—and this is where Hindu wisdom is so clear—is that the unspoken truth of pity is: Thank God I’m not you. That’s what pity is saying. You never pity an equal. You pity someone you believe is worse off. To receive pity is to receive that judgment. And to receive that judgment early in an interaction—based only on how you look—is a deeply disrespectful experience. With this essay, I’m inviting all non-White humans in the US to say No to such Pity and below I’ll guide you on how to do so.

Because I’m an Indian Brahmin, I’ve also been on the other end of this dynamic back in India. There, my people have often been the ones offering Pity cloaked as Compassion to those considered lower caste. I see that in myself now when I go back—and I’m grateful that I can catch it.

I had an experience at a recent dinner gathering—not in a racial context—where this came up. I had shared some ideas about the principles that guide my Eros right now, and someone responded with what they believed was compassion. But they had misheard me through their own lens, imagined sexual shame in what I was saying, and directed their compassion toward that. It didn’t reach me—because I wasn’t being seen.

I told them, “I appreciate what you’re sharing, but it’s not really reaching me. It seems like something that’s going on for you. I’m curious what that is, but it doesn’t feel connected to me.” They had an agitated reaction to that—something along the lines of, Why are you making it so hard for me to love you?

To me, that’s another clue. When met with an unexpected response, Compassion morphs into Curiosity. Pity switches into Agitation. This was another sign that this person was caught in a delusion—confusing pity for compassion.

The specifics of their agitated response reminds me that we also live in a time where the word Love has become corrupted. If you’ve been in abusive relationships, where love and agitation or passion have gotten fused (litmus test: do you love angry sex?), your sense of Love may be distorted.

Women who struggle to receive and honor boundaries from men sometimes say things like, You’re so difficult to love, not realizing that honoring someone’s boundary is actually a profound expression of Love. Of course, there are two sides to a coin and men often struggle with surfacing boundaries clearly and kindly. If you are a man reading this, I hope this gives you some language to work with on how to surface a boundary.

When you’re really feeling Love for someone, it becomes easy to honor their boundaries. It’s only when you’re caught in something else—lust, taking, control—that it becomes difficult.

It’s subtle, this confusion between pity and compassion. But you can learn to track it. I used to unconsciously fawn in response to pity. Back then, I’d feel a kind of excitement when someone offered pity disguised as compassion. But now, when I’m truly receiving compassion, there’s a softness. No excitement. That excitement I used to feel, I now recognize as a fawning response.

If you notice yourself getting excited when someone offers you “compassion,” pause. Ask yourself: where is this coming from? Does it feel true? Does something feel off?

You could even name it: Something feels off here. And then observe how they respond.

In a space of compassion, you’ll meet curiosity and clarity. No expectation. Just openness. In a space of pity, you’ll sense rigidity—a need for you to play a certain role. If you don’t follow the script, things get chaotic. You are allowed to walk away if someone regularly responds chaotically to you surfacing your needs and boundaries. In fact, you should.

Choosing to walk away in those moments is not a failure of compassion—it is the expression of it. It’s how we honor the dignity of our own heart while refusing to participate in dynamics that distort love into control or projection.

Sometimes the most compassionate act is the quiet refusal to abandon yourself.

That has been the flavor of the deepest wisdom I’ve received from women who have compassionately said No to me. In their clarity, they weren’t just protecting themselves—they were modeling something. They were showing me, in real time, how not to abandon myself either.