A Quote by Karen Armstrong
Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?
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All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. So merely changing formal religious affiliations will often not help much. On the other hand, in pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose!
Some people consider the practice of love and compassion is only related to religious practice and if they are not interested in religion they neglect these inner values. But love and compassion are qualities that human beings require just to live together.
I really feel that some people neglect and overlook compassion because they associate it with religion. Of course, everyone is free to choose whether they pay religion any regard, but to neglect compassion is a mistake because it is the source of our own well-being.
The essence of any religion is good heart. Sometimes I call love and compassion a universal religion. This is my religion.
Sometimes people feel disappointed when they hear about practicing compassion: "You mean I have to be nice?" It's kind of a letdown. We often overlook compassion, seeing it as merely a pit stop on the way to more advanced practices. We want something more; we don't even know what. But that's just a trick of our mind. One of the greatest teachings is to practice compassion.
Rather than converting people from one organised religion to another organised religion, we should try to convert people from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation and from cruelty to compassion.
Religion is the cause of all the problems in the world. I don’t believe in organized religion at all. It’s what separates people. One religion just represents fragments, it causes war. More people have died because of religious conflict than any other reason.
Compassion isn't some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that we're trying to live up to. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don't even want to look at.
I see the merit in religion, and I see the need for faith and hope and sometimes people who are more snide look at people who are religious, particularly people in rock bands, and they'll say, 'Oh that's dumb, you believe in whatever,' but I think everybody believes in something.
I often tease young people about their concern for how they look; more important is inner beauty - compassion, affection and respect.
I can sense and feel this wretched compassion that I don't want. But it's there. It's a very painful kind of compassion. It's not one you look for. You don't want this kind of compassion; it just happens.
I don't believe in religious tests, and I don't believe my religion is all that important to the people I represent. And I think there's too much religion in politics.
Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion.
There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.
Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places of believing practices, but for this very reason, they seem to have been haunted by the return of a very ancient (preChristian) and very “pagan” alliance between power and religion. It is as though now that religion has ceased to be an autonomous power (the “power of religion,” people used to say), politics has once again become religious.
I want to be part of the storytelling that educates people and awakens a sense of compassion in other people of the kind of people they don't encounter in their daily lives very frequently.
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