Category: Family

The New World Citizen

by Anandagiri / OWA Senior Faculty

In the summer of 2009, I was visiting the city of Los Angeles to speak at a conference. A week prior to the event myself, along with Krishna (founder of One World Academy), his wife Preetha and their 6 year old daughter Lokaa, were visiting a store for some grocery shopping. The name of the store was Bristol farms and they sold mostly organic foods.

We had finished our shopping and were gently pushing our nearly full cart to the parking lot with Lokaa sitting on top. As we walked we saw three young children, two girls and a boy, running towards us.

They looked between 9 and 11 years old. The children ran up to us and volunteered to push our cart for us in exchange for a small donation. We were surprised at their boldness and also curious to find out why they needed this money so desperately that they were willing to chase people in the parking lots to get it. We were deeply moved with their courage and innocence.
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Live Life With Compassion

Compassion is not an attribute of any religion. It is a universal principle for happiness and peace. In today’s world that is torn by conflict and strife, where violence and not love dictates people’s actions, what every person, at every level, of every age needs to learn is the art of nurturing compassion within oneself. Be it, a housewife fulfilling the many needs of her family, an entrepreneur meeting people and clinching deals for his company, a politician passing bills in the legislature that can change the destiny of millions or a auto rickshaw driver bargaining for higher rates with his passenger whoever you may be, you need compassion. Compassion should no more lie in the ideologies of philosophers, or in the lucrative rewards of theologians (in the after-life). The voice of compassion needs to be heard in every household, educational institution, office, business unit, shop, mall and theatre.
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