The Saint-Scientist Vallalar has a precise answer for what you came here for, which is how to be more compassionate towards others. You will learn why compassion, for him, was not a feeling to cultivate but a physical practice that opens the soul to divine grace-light. The search for a way to be kinder often feels vague, like trying to grasp at a mood. Much writing on the subject stays at the level of concept without a precise path. Vallalar taught a mechanism. To understand why this matters, we need to look at the man who documented it.
The Life and Teachings of Vallalar
Ramalinga Swamigal, known as Vallalar, was a 19th-century Tamil mystic whose collected writings, the Thiru Arutpa, remain one of the most extraordinary spiritual records ever produced. His life was filled with remarkable feats โ though he dismissed anything supernatural, insisting that everything he did was a science. He established a center for feeding the poor that has operated without interruption for over 150 years, serving food to anyone who arrives, 24 hours a day. On January 30, 1874, accounts from those present record that he locked himself in a room in Mettukuppam and was never seen again โ his body never found. This event is documented by government records and by British Collector John Henry Garstin.
The Central Prayer for Compassion and Grace-Light
At the heart of Vallalarโs daily practice is a Mahamantra, or great prayer. It is not a request for something but a statement of what is true. It orients the mind and body toward the two principles that make transformation possible: divine grace-light and the compassion that allows it to enter.
Aruแนญ Perum Jลti โ Aruแนญ Perum Jลti โ
Taแนi Perum Karuแนai โ Aruแนญ Perum Jลti
The translation is:
The Vast Grace-Light. The Vast Grace-Light.
The Incomparable Great Compassion. The Vast Grace-Light.
Reciting this aligns the practitioner with the force that animates Vallalarโs entire teaching. It is the verbal expression of the practice he called Jeeva Karunyam.
How to Be More Compassionate Towards Others: A Practice, Not a Feeling
For Vallalar, compassion is not an emotion you work up inside yourself. It is an action you perform in the world. He gave this practice a name: Jeeva Karunyam, which translates to compassion for all living souls. This is not passive sympathy. It is the active, physical, and immediate relief of suffering wherever you encounter it.
The primary forms of suffering he identified were hunger, poverty, disease, and fear of death. Jeeva Karunyam is the work of ending these conditions, starting with the ones you can most directly control. It is a discipline, like exercise or study. You do not wait to feel compassionate; you practice compassion, and the feeling follows as a natural result. This reframes the entire question from an internal state to an external action.
The Practice Begins With the Plate
Vallalarโs teaching on Jeeva Karunyam begins with the most immediate and controllable act: what one puts on the plate. He taught that the consumption of meat is a direct participation in the suffering of another being. The fear and pain an animal experiences at the time of death becomes part of the food, and ingesting it introduces that vibrational quality into the body.
This is not a moral judgment but a statement of mechanics. To build a body capable of holding grace-light, one must first stop introducing the energies of suffering into it. In his text Nithya Karma Vidhi, he lays out a simple, plant-based diet centered on foods that support spiritual clarity. By choosing a plant-based meal, a person performs their first, most basic act of Jeeva Karunyam. They refuse to cause suffering for their own sustenance. This single decision, made daily, is the foundation from which all other compassionate action grows.
Compassion as the Mechanism for Grace-Light
Why is this practice so central? Vallalar did not teach compassion as a virtue to aspire to for its own sake. He taught it as the necessary mechanism by which the divine grace-light, Arut Perum Jลti, enters and transforms the physical body. He taught that every act of Jeeva Karunyamโevery meal offered to the hungry, every kind word, every refusal to cause harmโopens a channel in the soul.
Through this channel, the grace-light descends, slowly restructuring the physical form. Vallalar documented this process in three stages. The first is the Suddha Deham or Pure Body, where disease and aging are arrested. The second is the Pranava Deham or Primal Body, where the physical body becomes subtle and light-filled. The final stage, which he himself demonstrated, is the Gnana Deham or Wisdom Body, a body of pure grace-light. This concept of physical transformation into light has parallels in other traditions, such as the Tibetan rainbow body, but Vallalarโs path presents it as a science available through the practice of compassion.
A person feeling disconnected and heavy might spend an afternoon helping at a local food bank. In the simple act of stacking cans or handing a bag of groceries to someone, the focus shifts entirely outward. Vallalar taught that in that moment of relieving anotherโs hunger, a subtle lightness enters oneโs own body, a direct effect of grace entering through the channel opened by compassion.
Your First Controllable Act of Compassion
You can begin the practice of Jeeva Karunyam today, in the most direct way Vallalar taught. It does not require a grand gesture. It requires a simple, conscious choice.
For your next meal, replace any animal-based product with a plant-based option. This is the first step in refusing to participate in the suffering of other beings. In his Nithya Karma Vidhi, Vallalar recommends foods like rice, lentils, gourds, or stem vegetables. Make a simple meal from these ingredients. As you eat, recognize this as your first act of active compassionโa small but real step that prevents suffering in the world.
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