https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/69975Sympathy
In fact, people enjoy being sorry for others. They are always looking for situations where they can feel sorry for others -- it is so ego-fulfilling, it is such a nourishment for the ego. If somebody's house is on fire you go with tears in your eyes and you show great sympathy, you show much concern, as if you are immensely pained. But deep down, if you watch, you will find a certain joy, a certain glee.
But people never look within themselves. It is bound to be there, for two reasons: it is not your house which is on fire, 'Thank God!' -- that is the first thing. Secondly, you must be enjoying your tears, because when somebody builds a new house, a beautiful house, you feel jealous; great envy arises in you. You cannot enjoy, you cannot participate in his joy. You want to avoid -- you don't even look at his house.[....]
If you cannot participate in the joy of others, how can you feel sorry when they are in trouble? If you feel jealous when they are joyful, then you will feel joyful when they are in trouble. But you will not show it, you will show sympathy. 'Sympathy' is not a good word.
There are a few words that are very ugly but which are now very respected; words like 'duty', 'service', 'sympathy' -- these are ugly words. A man who is fulfilling his duty is not a man of love. A man who is doing service knows nothing of love, because service is not done, it happens. And the man who sympathizes is certainly enjoying some kind of superiority: 'I am not in that sorry state, the other is in the sorry state. I have the upper hand -- I can feel sorry for him.' [....]
These do-gooders are mischievous people. They do good, but their desire is just the opposite of it.
The idea of feeling superior to the other is present in both cases, whether you feel sorry or you have compassion.
And you say:... AND THAT IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH LOVE...
Certainly it does not necessarily have anything to do with love -- not only that, it is anti-love because it is an ego trip and ego can never be in tune with love. Ego is poison to love, it is necessarily anti-love. Your compassion is not out of love if some desire of being superior is being fulfilled by it.
The lover never feels superior -- the lover cannot feel superior, the lover cannot even think that he has obliged anybody. On the contrary, when somebody receives your love you feel obliged that your love was not rejected -- it could have been rejected -- that your love was respected, welcomed. You feel obliged, you feel thankful, you feel grateful.
-Osho, "Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, #3, Q1"
