The Heart of Compassion Calls for Unity

Nehru and Gandhi sharing a joke

I have been writing, for a private readership, these reflections the past thirteen years and only began writing for a general public in my blog the last three months. Today I am compelled to call for unity in the public discourse. That means I might seem too right-wing for some on the left or too soft (or a bleeding-heart liberal) by right-wingers. Politics and the spiritual path have been connected long before the first Christians were sent into the arenas of Rome. Gandhi and Martin Luther King brought spiritual revival to the world while others (long before Jerry Falwell) have used the pulpit for opposite purposes. A call for unity can mean I listen to the claims and content of each side of any protest whether that protest is as trivial as birth control or as morally controversial as war. At a time when the nation is wrestling in the midst of political division, I am more concerned about the vitriol expressed by both sides than I am the content of their protests. The path of the Heart of Compassion seeks unity in my own spiritual life as well as unity in the politics in my community.

On 15 January 1941 Gandhi said, "Some say Pandit Nehru and I were estranged. It will require much more than difference of opinion to estrange us. We had differences from the time we became co-workers and yet I have said for some years and say so now that not Rajaji but Jawaharlal will be my successor."

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