Meister Eckhart had a wonderful way of putting it: If you are in a state of rapture meditating and your neighbor is hungry and needs a bowl of soup, it would be much more pleasing to God to give your neighbor the soup than to stay in the rapture.

There is joy in these very simple movements of compassion. When we are not awake to our true nature, we may do these things anyway out of some idea of compassion. But when we have literally touched our true nature, we find that it finds joy in meeting the moment of need. When the selfless nature of Self is awakened, we find this nature does not seek to avoid. Period.

Now the second kind of suffering—the other ninety-five to ninety-nine percent— is psychological suffering that is created by inner states of division. This kind of suffering happens because one does not know one's true nature.

The hallmark of knowing one's true nature fully is to be undivided. This does not mean that once enlightened, you will never experience hunger, or if a loved one dies you will not feel grief. You may experience states of mind that are unpleasant, but what you will not feel is the interior fracturing that makes the initial sadness much, much more. That is another layer of suffering that gets added on top of unavoidable pain.

Source : Emptiness Dancing, p.78