Compassion

  Here is something I read on the Internet said by Karen Armstrong, author of "A History of God".  "Compassion is not  popular a virtue.  Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, ......... 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.  And sometimes we use religion just to back up these unworthy hatreds,....  And a lot of this talk about love and compassion can be on the rather sloppy level .....  compassion is hard.  It's nothing to do with feeling.  It's about feeling with others.  Learning to put yourself in the position of another person.  There were years in my life when I was eaten up with misery and anger (this was after she had spent seven years as a nun in a convent).  I was sick of religion but when I got to understand what religion was really about, not about dogmas, not about propping up the church, not about converting other people to your particular wavelength, but about getting rid of ego and approaching others in reverence, I became much happier.  But you have to go a long journey ....  that takes you away from selfishness, from greed.  And that leads you to value the sacredness in all others."