This week I had a strange dream, of which I cannot remember the details, but something of it stayed, and I'm sure that it was the most important. Life usually sends us bright lessons or messages with these apparently “coincidences” that are not coincidences.

In the dream, someone told me, with a smile in which I could see a trace of a friendly kindness:

- Sometimes it happens that the lion falls in love with the mouse...

I woke up with these words echoing in my mind, but the day went by and I did not think about the episode until the afternoon, when I wanted to enjoy the rest of the holiday and randomly chose a movie to watch, accompanied with lots of “popcorn”... in an attempt to relax my mind from the everyday stress. And I chose among the dozens of DVDs in my collection the latest version of that old King Kong - Skull Island.

In the middle of the film, however, to my astonishment, one of the characters asks the other, while a great succession of action scenes mixed with special effects was taking place:

"You do remember the fable of the Lion and the Rat, don’t you?" The Lion becomes the Rat's friend when he pulls out the thorn in his foot!

I almost stopped watching the movie.

At the time I remembered the dream which I had already forgotten, buried as an unimportant thing under the daily activities with which I had been involved since morning.

And the meaning of that apparent synchronicity was softly emerging to my understanding: the need for empathy, in the chaotic situation of humanity during these days!

The archetypes were confirmed, clear, crystalline!

The Lion, a symbol of brute force, of power over the fragility of the rat, loved the little animal precisely because he was the one, who imbued with compassion had relieved him of a disorder that, despite his physical superiority, he did not know how to solve it.

He had relieved him from pain! Of a nuisance which, it may be said, could not be fatal to an animal endowed with that sovereignty, but which might bother him until he became sick!

And how would the mouse act like this if, even though he controlled his inner fear caused by the physical superiority of the other animal, he did not overcome this with compassion and solidarity?

In this way I understood the subtle, timely “message” that had been sent to me through the divine synchronicity of that dream with the movie that I had randomly chosen to watch during the afternoon, in the initial intention of only relaxing the spirit overwhelmed with the my daily commitments.

I remembered some time ago, when I helped a certain person who, eventually benefited from some of the things I spontaneously did to help him, and this person was moved by a touching friendship and gratitude towards me, although in truth I still think that the beneficial results came more from the splendid light of this person itself than to what I may have mobilized in his favor, small as I feel before the importance of everything good that is done for our neighbor.

Only after much reflection, however, did I understand the personal meaning of that magical synchronicity, as an exact answer to this same dilemma in which my mind had floated weeks before.

At some point I was such a mouse, pitied by the impotence of a lion in the throes of an adversity that, surprisingly, he did not know how to solve. And this loved one whom I assisted, in truth a lion himself, in his grateful generosity, established with me a touching fraternal bond that gave us this context, so necessary to the improvement of the present conditions of life in the world!

The context of empathy!

Who is assured that one day he will not see himself with a poisoned thorn stuck in his foot? Somehow ... In some unforeseeable situation that, in spite of all the resourcefulness of each one of us to do well every day, takes us unawares?

Understanding the pain of the other! Of what bothers!

Putting ourselves in the place of the other, feeling together, and, from this mutual identification, be solidary and help!

In the silence of the neighborhood, a sudden commotion shows there is an emergency. A woman screams for help... Unquestionable signs of domestic violence, or a similar urgency! How to react? With a “This does not concern me?” Or with the prompt phone call in search of a rescue that could represent, in more serious cases, the saving of a life?

Or in some group in a mall, one sees a degrading scene, of disrespect or prejudice against anyone, with strong signs of threat to the integrity of who is the victim of some serious type of embarrassment.

Again, a “This does not concern me?”  Or is it not time to ask for prompt help from the local administration, in the event of not being able to help with the necessary efficiency?

Someone suffers humiliation in its professional environment. We heard the crying hidden in a toilet. The person’s emotional valve finally burst into tears. Or we witnessed someone being verbally attacked or notoriously unjustly accused, suffering from the absence of verbal or circumstantial conditions to

We found a street animal being mistreated. An elderly man, humiliated in public transportation in his right to travel in specific seats where a shameful number of people pretend to sleep, or simply ignore the disrespect to legal rights...

How many thorns are strewn about in so many feet!

And all that mankind, in a great number, persists in doing, is to solemnly neglect the cure for the unhappiness that looms just because of the disease spread by this very humanity, in the sad practice of lack of empathy! This mouse’s ability to feel the pain of the lion's paw! If fear is overcome, the fear of the risk of venturing to pluck the thorn in order to give another being the relief of suffering, which is not known when, or in what situations, it may be his!

As an example, recently and in places closer to our routines, there are a great number of lessons! Like the situation of the sad attack to His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Brazil, that was celebrated by many with no explanation whatsoever; the unfortunate carnival masks, mocking, with cruelty, the illness of an actor, and consequently, the suffering of his relatives; and even now, the attacks regarding the so sad event of the passing away of an innocent child, subject to harsh impiety by the alleged and unjustifiable situation, because the child was related to a former president of the country!

Lack of empathy!

This is possibly the worst of the evils of our century!

He who suffers from a lack of empathy, above all, errs from the blindness of the vanity of the ego, because the non-empath becomes the implacable censor of others that, only they, external to themselves, admit to err.

Unable to admit at least the infinite diversity of human beings, in the same proportion of chosen paths and opinions, he believes, the non-empath, to be his understanding of events, of people, the only valid perception, which allows him the obscure position of an inquisitor of his bother; and so he forgets to perceive all too often that he can be caught making the same mistake, or worse than that of which he briefly accuses someone of his most implacable criticism and condemnation.

The non-empath is incapable of recognizing the rich and complex universe represented by each person, and for each trajectory chosen by free will. He is unable to admit not knowing everything, all the nuances, feelings involved, and contexts.

Immobilized in the self-promotion of a censor, he establishes his laws of judgment, usually merciless, which, however, bring no benefit, and promote nothing but discord and pain!

He buries deeper, therefore, the poisonous thorn in the lion's paw, at the moment weakened, humanized in its condition of suffering in line with all other living beings.

Instead of the compassion that seeks to understand, to help and to heal, when he does not simply keep silent in the eventual impossibility of help, the non-empath uses the hardness of his heart: and thus he accuses, condemns, and abandons everyone to their suffering – thinking much of himself, he deludes himself by believing he is preserved, in this attitude, from other thorns that will surely come to mistreat him by the transitorily favorable conditions of the body and spirit. Therefore, he confines himself to the same vulnerable situation in which all those who are staying in this world for more or less time, in need of the living web of living beings extending their hands to each other, for the common strengthening of the walk.

So that they remember that health, happiness, well-being attend only to the conscience put into practice by each one of us, that the pain of one is the same pain of all. The happiness of one is identical to the happiness of others. The smiles of some are just like everyone else’s around the planet!

Tears, smiles, joys and pains are just expression of the same feelings, present in all of humanity!

May one day come the definitive understanding that each one in turn will be put in a position to act like the rat, or like the lion - and that is just that, so simple, that depends on the happy solution of our minors as problems.