Love Your Neighbour

We should share the sufferings of our fellow human beings and practice compassion and tolerance, not only towards our loved ones but towards our enemies.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Little book of Wisdom, Rider, London, 1997.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

G.K. Chesterton

We are told on Sundays that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. On the other six days of the week, we are exhorted to hate. But you will remember that the precept was exemplified by saying that the Samaritan was our neighbour. We no longer have any wish to hate Samaritans and so we are apt to miss the point of the parable. If you want to get its point, you should substitute Communist [terrorist] or anti-Communist, [anti-terrorist] as the case may be, for Samaritan. It might be objected that it is right to hate those who do harm. I do not think so. If you hate them, it is only too likely that you will become equally harmful; and it is very unlikely that you will induce them to abandon their evil ways. Hatred of evil is itself a kind of bondage to evil. The way out is through understanding, not through hate. I am not advocating non-resistance. But I am saying that resistance, if it is to be effective in preventing the spread of evil, should be combined with the greatest degree of understanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of the good things that we wish to preserve.

Bertrand Russell, Knowledge and Wisdom

Peace, Love, Joy

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this precious little Instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look.

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendour, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too: Be not content with them as joys. They too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then, to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country on our way home.

And so I greet you. ^[1] Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

— Fra Giovanni 1513.AD.

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^[1] The original line reads: “And so at this Christmas time I greet you.” You can restore this when using the text as a Christmas card.

The Elders call for a billion signatures

2008 is the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

It‘s a time for a global conversation about human rights. To consider the values that unite society as one human family and one global village. But it can be more. For the last 60 years it‘s been governments that have been asked to sign the Universal Declaration. The Elders hope that 2008 can be the year that individuals, not just governments, sign the declaration. The Elders are calling for one billion signatures from across the world. The old generation of leaders wants yours to be one of them. They urge you to embrace the values and goals of the declaration; to protect the rights of fellow global villagers and encourage others to do the same in communities, workplaces and schools. To sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CLICK HERE.