The Lost Art of Compassion
“Because Angels could not propagate, nor make more Angels, God enlarges his love in making man, that so he might enjoy all natures at once, and have the nature of Angels, and the nature of earthly creatures in one person.”
~ John Donne
Compassion is the key to healing our tinctured planet. When we mindfully attend to a person we’re with, the living energy becomes an intimate part of who we are. Compassion is often seen as a distant, altruistic ideal cultivated by saints or as an unrealistic response of the naively kind-hearted. But when we view compassion this way, we lose out on experiencing the transformative potential of one of our most precious but neglected inner resources.
We must make it our task to perform one act of kindness every day, no matter how small it may be. It can be as simple as picking up a scrap of paper in your neighbour’s yard or yielding to a car in traffic, or as complex as making a lonely person feel loved.
By making kindness a part of your daily life, it becomes such a normal response that you don’t have to strain to summon it forth from the dregs of your soul anymore.
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Moin Qazi holds PhDs in Development Economics and English. He worked for three decades at State Bank of India in various developmental roles. He served as Chancellor’s nominee in Nagpur University and as a Member of the National Committee on Financial Inclusion at NITI Aayog. He is the recipient of the UNESCO World Politics Essay Gold Medal, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Gold Medal from Dalit Sahitya Academy and Rotary International’s Vocational Excellence Award.
