In a world where every action has an impact on everyone else in the world.
When walls cannot keep "your" people together and "them" away, rules and rituals stand no legitimacy in boundaries of geographical areas or epochs of time.
Anything that puts your mind into a category is evil
For the first time "Capitalism" and "Communism" are both bad words, everywhere and always.
Fanaticism, the greatest evil of them all.
Inclusion, greatest virtue.
I declare Empathy my religion.
Swami Vivekananda started his address at the1893 World Parliament of Religions with the words
"Sisters and brothers of America."
This was followed by a wild applause that lasted a few minuets they say.
These words were never more relevant than they are today.
"As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
"Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me."
"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal."
And he concluded with
"If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: "Help and not fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
2 comments:
Absolutely, couldn't agree more! Empathy is our only hope to fade out borders that are very surreptitiously reinforced day in day out.
But, in this place [Canada] where there are immigrants from all over the world, and the newspapers EVERY DAY speak of Should we include these people, should we keep away these others, how can culturally different people ever create a unified nation etc etc, I begin to understand the insecurity which perhaps is the reason why people cling onto their communities and are wary of empathizing with other cultures.
Leave alone the immigrant problem within the country, the letters to the Editor speak of supporting Holland's new policies which aim at keeping away "outsiders" who they dont believe will fit in with their culture and way of living.
There are letters that speak of being appalled at seeing women wearing burkhas in Toronto-maybe they want to do it, it's their religion, but we dont want to see it, it appalls us that women are treated this way, dont bring it over here to our country.
Even the most liberal of people, when they feel threatened because of being treated differently, begin to wonder why should we be empathetic to others when they dont reciprocate?
It is possible to understand why people create walls - they are created for protection in a time of insecurity [real or just imagined], and then they become barriers to even what is good oustide. [like in our emotional lives!]
And then there is this unthinking behaviour - even if you are not threatened in any way, wherever you go, a huge number of people tend to veer towards their communities, like Indians search for India Town in every big city in the world,and do not want to get to know about the beliefs and ways of life of that place. Even people who have settled down in a new country, sometimes have very little awareness of the religion and customs and problems of the land where they have set up house.
Maybe this is not a conclusive view - but wherever I have travelled abroad, I have noticed that I meet Indians mostly only at shopping malls and Indian restaurants - at local community events/places where people from other communities participate, usually I am the only Indian around.
Possibly this is true of other communities too, but the point is that an effort to go out of your way to understand another's culture - which I strongly believe is the base of all empathy - is an effort that is not always made.
Maybe people just get caught up in the necessities of the mundane and beleive that such things are too much of trouble, and let's stick to the safety of our small private worlds, what are we really getting out of interacting with others?
To summarize - after all you only want to eat Chinese food, and for that you dont have to try and understand their way of life or their rich traditions, aren't there Chinese restaurants at every street corner wherever you go? !!
Like I wrote some time ago -
http://toconstantlywonderafresh.blogspot.com/2005/10/tolerance-tolerance-is-dirty-word.html
nice! yeah, empathy. despite cultural and religious diversity, we are united by only one thing - empathy.
nice blog!
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