The Golden Rule

Turbulent times accompanied the birth of Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam, the polytheistic* religions of Christianity in Rome and rationalism in Greece. All shared a core vision for building a better world that was both simple and drastic:

Karen Armstrong, a leading British writer on the history of religion, says the Golden Rule, an elegant concept advanced by sages and prophets from Socrates to Ezekiel, has long been obscured by disputes of "my faith is better than yours."

Karen Armstrong says the ideal of the Golden Rule always applies and urges that humanity abide by the ancient call to abandon selfishness and embrace compassion.

"The sages from about 900 to 200 BC worked to find a cure for the spiritual ills of humanity.

They found that the way of compassion and the emptying of selfishness actually worked.

It does bring people a sense of sacred peace within themselves.

Humanity has never gone beyond these great insights, which is why we call this period the "Axial Age" - the pivot of the spiritual history of humanity.

In later times, people looked back at these sages teaching and reproduced them to speak to their own difficulties.

But compassion has to put it into practice. Compassion has to be lived.

A lot of the religions have actually shielded people from the Axial Age's concentration on compassion by erecting secondary goals, such as orthodox beliefs. Every single one of the "fundamentalist" movements I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is rooted in a profound fear of their religion's annihilation.

Confucius, the Buddha, the prophets of Israel, and later Jesus and Muhammad were more ambitious. They wanted to craft a different type of humanity. They were interested only in compassionate behavior that dethrones the self from the center of one's reality.

It does not matter what tradition you belong to. Compassion and kindness bring you into the presence of what monotheists call God, also known as nirvana, Brahmin, or the Way.

Ekstasis, or ecstasy, in Greek means "stepping outside."

This is not an exotic state of consciousness, it means the freedom of stepping outside the prison of egotism, selfishness, greed and envy.

This, anybody can do.

Confucius was asked, "Which one of your teaching can we put into practice all day and every day?"

Confucius replied, "Do not do to others as you would not have done unto you."

That means every time we are tempted to say something unkind about a relative, or an annoying colleague, or a country with whom we are at war, we should ask, "How would I like that said about me or our people?"

The instant we refrain, we have transcended ourselves and our selfishness.

Humanity is living on an Earth united now - whether we like it or not - electronically; economically and politically. The only way we can end hostility is to learn to think that other nations are as important as ourselves and to practice the Golden Rule - do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you - which was first proposed by Confucius about 500 years before Jesus. It's the only safe way." - Karen Armstrong

Natural selection can push in the direction of true selflessness.

The emergence of reciprocity allowed humans to trade favors without being cheated.

A favor-giver learns to avoid blatant cheaters (those who would accept a favor but not return it) while learning to prefer generous reciprocators (those who return the biggest favor they can afford) over stingy ones (those who return the smallest favor they can get away with).

Since it's good to be chosen as a recipient of favors, a competition arises to appear to be the most generous partner around, since the favor-giver can't literally read minds or see into the future.

A reputation for fairness and generosity becomes an asset.

Because potential beneficiaries inflate their reputations the favor-giver must develop ever-more-sensitive radar to distinguish the genuinely generous partners from the hypocrites.

The most effective way to seem generous and fair, under harsh scrutiny, is to be generous and fair.

In the long run a reputation can be secured only by a commitment to be generous and fair.

Some agents evolve to be genuinely high-minded and self-sacrificing - they are moral not because of what it brings them but because that's the kind of people they have become.

"Just accept the fact that holy books are the product of human creativity, not divine revelation, and thus are subject to all the errors, exaggerations and fabrications as any other human effort.

If the Old or New Testaments, the Qur’an or any other religious tract contains passages that are problematic, it's because the author was a flawed, imperfect human being.

Rather than wasting time bending over backward to reinterpret what the text is really saying, why not just set the books down, shake your neighbor's hand, try to get along and just be nice to everyone?" - Daniel Molitor

It is time for every person to give up childish selfish behavior and walk the path of empathy and compassion.