Compassion: The confluence of creeds

All over the world we are being shocked by violence and bloodshed, especially the violence, terrorism and killings in the name of God and religion. How can people ironically kill ‘in God's name’? What we see is not religion, but irreligion (or adharma). Hence, this article tries to find a common meeting-ground for the world religions. It hypothesizes that all the religions of the world speak of ‘compassion’ – and derivatives like mercy, day’, karuna, anukampa, ren, rahim, etc – in various ways. When we begin to cultivate attitudes of mercy and compassion, and inspire others to do the same, we begin to build communities not only of tolerance, but also communities of fellowship, justice and peace. This is the need of the hour. We must not allow violence and bloodshed to get the better of us; but, we must use the very best of our religious treasures to build a new world of fellowship, justice and peace.