Compassion

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, 
his thoughts and feelings,
 as something separated from the rest -
 a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
 restricting us to our personal desires and
 affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
 by widening our circle of compassion -
 to embrace all living creatures and
the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely,
 but the striving for such achievement is, in itself,
 a part of the liberation and a 
foundation for inner security." Albert Einstein

Karen Armstrong, whose books on religion have earned her international renown, urged Morristown Thursday to sign her Charter for Compassion.

“We are creating a network of compassionate cities all over the world, and I urge you: Why not make this city one of them?” she asked. “We’re devising a one-page template to show you the steps you have to go through to get your city to affirm the charter.”

In "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life," she calls on religious people and others to return the Golden Rule to a pre-eminent place in their lives

Q. And you say the Golden Rule started with Confucius, five centuries before Jesus?

Yes. All the world religions have developed the Golden Rule, quite independently of one another, and said it's the test of true spirituality. That's not to say that all religions are the same. But what they do agree on is that there's something wrong with your spirituality and your practice of religion if it doesn't lead you to compassion. That is the test in every religion.

Religious historian and former nun Karen Armstrong, gave a talk at London’s Purcell Room last Wednesday  on her project to return compassion to the heart of religious discourse.

This initiative, whose central ideas are elaborated on in her latest book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, came about in 2008 when she was awarded $100,000 from Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) which promotes “ideas worth spreading”. Frustrated that, she felt, religion is not making a contribution to building a global community founded upon respect – “one of the chief tasks of our time”, she asked TED to help her to create a charter for compassion that would restore the golden rule to the centre of moral and religious life. This charter was then drawn up by leading activists and thinkers representing six of the major world faiths.

Q. What's the main headline when you speak these days?

That if we want a safe world, we have to practice compassion - for all beings, not just the people we find congenial. Unless we learn to implement the Golden Rule globally, so that we treat all peoples, all nations, all ethnicities the way we wish to be treated ourselves, we're not going to have a viable world.

I tried to bait the famous author into a partisan screed, but she was having none of it.

“America is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now our Nobel Peace Prize winning president is taking us into war in Libya. I’d be interested to hear your take on how some of the things you’ve talked about relate to the wider geopolitical scene,” I said to Karen Armstrong, author of more than two dozen books, most recently Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.

From Confucius to Oprah, people have preached compassion for centuries. But how often is it put into practice? In Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life, religion expert Karen Armstrong describes ways to add kindness to daily routines.

Canadians For Compassion is the vision and aspiration of Jannet Ann Nordemann, a self-proclaimed compassionista, student of several of the world faith and spiritual traditions for over 30 years, lawyer and social entrepreneur. Jannet was inspired to share the Charter For Compassion after hearing Karen Armstrong at the TED.com event in 2008 where she was awarded the TED Prize.