The Brahma Viharas are extremely important in our practice because they help to develop Right Intention, which helps to develop Right Virtue, and everything that's "Right" after it. Emotional maturity comes from the Brahma Viharas, giving us a sense of balance on the emotional level, so that we can open to Truth on deeper levels. Brahma Viharas are extremely important.
How to balance them within themselves? Compassion and Lovingkindness help to balance each other; Equanimity helps to strengthen that balance. Compassion on its own can fall into grief and aversion towards the world. We open to Dukkha but we don't really accept it. There's a wish to end it. So if it's not supported by Lovingkindness and Equanimity, it can degenerate into aversion, and non-acceptance of Dukkha. So we have to strengthen Compassion with Lovingkindness and Equanimity.
We also have to balance it with Sympathetic Joy, so we don't only focus on the Dukkha in the world, but we also see the beneficial qualities of human beings and the way out. It's more about reflecting on the way out, balancing the view that this life is Dukkha, Dukkha, Dukkha. There's also the way out of Dukkha.
These Brahma Viharas balance each other. Equanimity has a tendency to fall into indifference. Although Equanimity arises from Wisdom, Wisdom can be very hard. Compassion helps to balance the Equanimity so that we remember how difficult it is to be a human being, and how easy it is to get attached and fall into suffering due to that. Without Compassion to balance it, Equanimity can easily fall into indifference. As well, this could result in the Compassion to fall into pity. If we happen to be free from big Dukkha at the moment, we may forget how difficult it is to be a human being, and that we also can experience it. Feeling fine in ourselves, we then may not wish to open to the Dukkha of others. So we try to prevent our Wisdom and Equanimity from becoming too hard by balancing it with Compassion so we are able to care and not just not care.
We also need to open to our own inherent Dukkha. Sometimes indifference comes because we're doing too much calming, and not opening to the Dukkha within ourselves. It's our way to protect ourselves from opening to our own Dukkha, indifference. So Equanimity needs to be balanced with Compassion.
With Sympathetic Joy, we can get very giddy, and we forget the suffering in the world. It can also degenerate into craving, only wanting pleasant feeling. So Compassion helps to balance that. Equanimity and understanding the nature of things helps to balance that.
The unselfish emotions are very important in our practice.