When I’m trying to “help,” I’ve constructed an identity: a “me” I believe myself to be. And anytime a (false) identity takes action with the intention to help, it establishes a painful (false) separation. It tells a made-up story of helper and victim when in fact all is one. It’s an argument with reality. And the only possible outcome of an argument with reality is suffering.
Better to work with the cause of the problem: what I’m thinking and believing.
In all things, Mind is the cause and the World is the effect.
If I really want to help without spreading pain, I can clear up a mind that sees a world in need of help - a world that is somehow beneath me - and replace it with the understanding that “I” and “the world” are one and the same thing. And then behave accordingly. To work with the “me” that creates the “us” that gives rise to the “you” that apparently needs all the help.
That is the end of war. That is the end of suffering.
When my mind isn’t clouded by an ego-centered desire to “help,” when I understand that I am inseparable from the world, I can be fully present in what is, moving in concert with what is, with nothing to fear, totally connected and able to act freely out of my true, kind, generous, love-filled nature.
Some may even consider that helpful.