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Love and Compassion are necessities and not luxuries. Without them, humanity can not survive.

 Love and compassion are the two foundational values. They are foundational in the sense that once a person has it other moral values like empathy, selflessness, honesty etc. automatically follow. It is impossible for a person to not be empathetic to others if he/she is compassionate. Also if you love someone you can't be selfish to them.

In fact, in many situations, our moral values are perfected by the presence of love and compassion. Empathy, for example, which is the ability to not just acknowledge other's emotions but also feel them, can be misused by a sociopath, who lacks compassion to cause maximum pain. It is when values like empathy and selfishness are integrated with love and compassion that we get a feeling of fraternity and togetherness. 

It was this love and compassion for people which kept Mahatma Gandhi resilient on his focus on "Sarvodaya" - upliftment of all. Mahatma Gandhi was moved by the plight of Dalits and women which motivated him to work tirelessly for their upliftment by writing periodicals and articles in his weekly Harijan and observing fast to show his commitment.

As with many other good things, love and compassion can be a vehicle of change for good. But, when they are missing from our discourse its result is equally disastrous. When the feeling of compassion for others take backseat exploitation, power dominance and a feeling of suspicion take the driving seat. Such suspicion leads to reevaluation and re-contextualization of even benign acts which further feeds to the already present suspicion, and the vicious cycle operates.

Recent killings in France, in the terrorist attack, point to this phenomenon. Not only this incident, but all incidences of terrorism can be traced back to the erosion of feeling of fraternity. Even if one offends someone that does not give anyone the right to kill because we all are human beings and there are bound to be differences. But, those differences are to be solved through peaceful dialogue in a compassionate and accommodating way.

Apart from the rising radicalism, another threat to humanity is deep inequality. Seldom has been this idea more blatant than during the COVID-19 pandemic. As per Oxfam report, globally the wealthiest 1% hold twice as much wealth as the bottom 6.9 billion people (more than 88% of the world population). This inequality earlier seemed to be a moral imperative to be addressed. But, COVID-19 has shown that it is, in fact, even an existential threat, as chances of any person getting infected by COVID-19 is equally high if others in society are vulnerable to it. Since the poor have limited access to healthcare facilities and livelihood opportunity, that they don't have much option other than working, even without protection, and being at the risk of getting infected. Poor can't even practice physical distancing given the conditions in which they live. The population density of Dharavi, the infamous slum of Mumbai, is more than 2.5 lakh persons per square Kilometer. To put things into perspective India, which herself has a large population, has an average national population density of 382 persons per square Kilometer. 

These challenges faced by the poor are not limited to them. We all are part of the same ecosystem and it reaches up to us as well. Addressing this inequality requires compassion towards them, more now than ever before.

Another threat to the existence of humanity is the ongoing crisis of climate change. At the core of it, too, lies the disregard of Mother Nature. As the Indian-born-British Philosopher, and Environmentalist, Satish Kumar says - Humans are also nature, we take birth, die and decay much like other natural entity. So we should not see ourselves separate from the Earth as a person using the Earth like a kid using a video game. Rather we all are a part of an inseparable whole - The Earth. Any impact on it will be received by the whole, including human.

But, since the discovery of fire, we have been manipulating nature and tried to master it with utter disregard to fellow beings and other creatures. This pace aggravated after the Industrial Revolution with the coming of smoke and Greenhouse gas spewing factories and fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles coupled with massive deforestation. The consequence is that we are witnessing climate change and sea-level rise. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says by the turn of the century 90% of the coral reefs will be gone, sea-level would have risen to submerge thriving coastal settlements and economy nerve centres like Mumbai, Chennai, Jakarta, New York City, Osaka etc.

All of these threats that are posed to humanity can be addressed by nurturing love and compassion for all. For nurturing such values we need both - spirituality and scientific temper, which is in fact, even included as part of our Fundamental Duty in the Indian Constitution.

Spirituality is needed to have a dispassionate view of the increasing consumerism and materialism, and the impact such madness is having on humanity. At the same time, it will help us realise the value of love and compassion. Even as we practice spirituality there is a need to have a scientific outlook to have a better understanding of issues and rise above parochial gains. It will help us realise that the path shown by both, spirituality and science, converge.

Humanity has witnessed many adverse events - famines, epidemics, floods, earthquakes and we have survived them all by being compassionate to each other and sticking together. Human ingenuity when provided with the proper enabling environment can find solutions also to the pressing problems that we face today. But, we have to stay together peacefully and lovingly, because as Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer said - "There is no help that is going to come from outside to save us from ourselves"

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