Let Compassion
Heal the Hurting World

The world is hurting. Everywhere one looks at there are some forms of conflict, violence, environmental degradation, corruption, misery, diseases, etc. All of them manifest either at the individual or the collective level. Many people are now asking, for example, how can we heal the hurting world? Do we know how to do it? Do we have the inner capacity to heal the world?

But, why is the world hurting in the first place? Because the world is you and I (and this is not just semantics, or a metaphor), why are we hurting each other? Actually, we are the world, there is only one world: our world.

Today, everyone can contribute to the healing of our hurting world, although, there are important conditions for it to happen. One of them is to truly understand the golden rule governing this era.

Every era has its challenges. In the past, one of the challenges was to reconcile science with religion. As we know now, many people were killed because those two aspects of our lives were not reconciled. Some died, for example, because they believed the earth was round. The basic golden rule of that era, which still permeates this era, is very simple and powerful: “as I know, so I act.”

Knowledge was and still is the central stage of our lives. It is the central stage of public policy-making –as its authorizing rule– as it is a powerful rule in our individual and collective life. This is why many people are not content with just having a high school diploma. They aspire for a master or even a Ph.D. degree, unless a given degree gets us somewhere. In practice, we see how the market place honors this golden rule by allocating more money to those who have a higher degree than those who have a lesser degree.

Today, the challenge facing the world is changing, and this increased awareness is not to say that science and religion have been reconciled, nor that knowledge is not important. But the greatest challenge we face now is the reconciliation between our material life and our non-material life. There is a need for the reconciliation between economics and spirituality.

This reconciliation demands a different golden rule: “as I self-realize, or as I experience, so I act.” Thus, it is central to experience the process of human self-realization, the process of human transformation.

Just to have, to do, or to know, is not enough for human betterment. It is important to be and to become.

Therefore, the concern should not be with, for example, the advancement of science and technology per-se, but with the level of consciousness of those who use that science and technology for unacceptable causes. Specifically, one could do anything one wants with the existence of nuclear physics: either to fight cancer or to create another human holocaust. The choice is ours.

There is no doubt that the world is hurting, and it is hurting because of both material and spiritual reasons.

The world is hurting, because there is nearly half of the world population living in poverty, being in absolute poverty with less than one dollar a day, or in relative poverty with less than two dollars a day. There are nearly one billion people who go to bed everyday hungry, in a world full of wealth and with plenty of food. There are thousands of children who die everyday of preventable diseases. This is not only a shame, but also the greatest ethical and moral dilemma we will ever face. There are 600,000 women who die every year, because they don’t’ have access to health care services during pregnancy and delivery.

The world is hurting today because of the way we are treating the children and the youth. The youth faces unemployment and see no real opportunities for betterment of their lives. Millions of children do not go to school and the majority being girls. Millions of children are combatants and at war. In fact, the weapon industry is producing lighter and more effective weapons so that children don’t have a physical impairment to carry these weapons. Through media and toys, we are teaching the children how to kill, and it is devastating to think about how they are going to decide between war and peace when they have to push the button that they are so well trained to push in their war games. Many youth are joining gangs in the world. This is not a phenomenon only of developing countries, this is a worldwide phenomenon, because these youngsters have lost hope and they don’t believe in the existing political system or a better future.

The world is hurting, because we are not respecting the elderly people. They are materially fragile, and they are disempowered. Their wisdom, their spiritual guidance, and their contribution are not allowed to be made, so the transition between our generation and future generations is being ignored.

The world is hurting because of social injustices, and because we are not respecting human rights. We are still violating the rights of women, as if we needed to discuss again and again whether men and women are equal. This is really a shame and a tragedy of great proportion. We are destroying indigenous cultures, as if they didn’t have anything to contribute to human history. In fact, we are burning the library of humanity before we have the chance to read the books.

Yes, this is not enough.

What is most tragic today — and that’s why the world is hurting — is that we believe that conflict and war is a normal state of human beings. This is not possible. We have created millions of innocent victims and we have destroyed the fiber of society and we have devastated the principal social unit of our lives that is the family. We are hurting, because we are destroying the environment, which is so fundamental not only for our material existence but for our spiritual existence as well.

The world is being crushed today by a value system that is individualistic and is bounded by economics and finance. These values dominate our lives and the present course of globalization. But people should know that economies are globalizing, but societies are not globalizing.

Spiritually we are hurting, because we see so much discrimination in the world, because we are taught that there are lives of different values. Specifically, the life of the rich is worth much more than the life of the poor. Spiritually, we are not respecting the most sacred aspect of our lives and we see how one religion persecutes another religion. We are hurting spiritually, because we insist that our way of life today somehow requires that we sacrifice someone for the betterment of someone else, as if we need to leave some people behind to move other people forward.

We are unhappy, and this is not a matter of just being materially developed or underdeveloped. But there will be no material wealth that will be capable to buy happiness, joy, or security. We have tried to cure the world. We have spent billions and billions of dollars on poverty elimination programs, and we have tried to help in many ways, but actually the success is not that great. And many of us feel that we are losing the battle. In fact, many people spend a lot of time today saying that the millennium development goals will never be attained. This is not just a matter of material means. It is the lack of political power and human will.

To heal the hurting world will require that we go beyond matter and beyond the material expression of our human existence. No level of material wealth will resolve the pains of the soul. These pains are deeply rooted in us, both as humans and as beings.

To heal the world, humanity needs to go through a major revolution of values and a major process of human transformation.

To heal humanity –materially and spiritually– we must have the experience of the human self-realization of compassion.

• Compassion, not as material generosity or a compilation of handouts.
• Compassion as an absolute state of our existence.
• Compassion as that capacity to become the other without losing our own identity.
• Compassion is born within us for the other.

It is compassion the true source of healing.

This is why compassion must become a human value in public policy making. Otherwise public policy is just empty promises and shallow decision-making processes.

Despite the delicate situation we live today, we must remain optimistic, because the solution to the above mentioned problems lies within us. The solution does not depend on something else or someone else. The solution depends on each of us, individually and collectively. The poor and the rich, the blacks, the whites, the yellows, the browns, the people living in the North or in the South, and all beings living on this planet have the ability to self-realize compassion.

This ability to self-realize compassion is a natural state of being. It has nothing to do with religion, beliefs, politics, etc. Mother bird feeds her little chicks because of compassion. The mother bird has the ability to be compassionate.

You just need one breath of life to do so. And it will be through this self-realization of compassion that we will heal the hurting world.

Now is the time to decide the future of human destiny. This is the time to make major commitments and to bring to the fore our human will. Without these, we will never be able to heal the world.

We live in a moment of human history when we know that the solution lies within ourselves. That the solution is in the hearts and the soul of each of us, whatever may be happening at the level of our material life.

Compassion must be spread now as a wildfire. Compassion must be spread now like a river of fire. The transformational power of compassion is the only source, and perhaps the ultimate source of healing the world.

This is why, wherever we go, we must advocate The 200% Society — a society that is materially and spiritually rich. We all must take the necessary steps towards the creation of this society.

The world is healing and prepared to be healed. Let us not spend time pointing fingers. The time has come to look inwards, rather than outwards, respecting all aspects of our lives. It is a time to embrace an honest and loving process of inner reflection.

To heal the world we must also heal ourselves. And healing others makes our own process of healing more effective and meaningful. Because we live in an inter-dependent world, if one person is hurting we are all being affected.

Let us give love and peace a chance. Perhaps, this is the last time we have that choice without being exposed to massive conflict and despair. Time is of essence.