My religion is Kindness

Kindness is a behavioral skill developed in your childhood and to a large extent depends on the way you are brought up. These are the result of the virtues inculcated in you when you were young. Religion, culture and the society, with whom you have maximum interaction, are all contributing factor to mold this behavioral skills. When you demonstrate the skill of kindness, you act in a spontaneous way showing gesture of goodwill towards someone or something - our fellow humans, or to any other living being. Kind words and deeds come from inner mind and are spontaneous and generated by a core response deep within all of us. When we carry out an act of kindness it is a message from one heart to another or from one living being to another and is an act of love, an unspoken statement that "I care for you".

Aristotle, in Book II of his "Rhetoric", defines kindness as being "helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped".

Kindness is a behavioral skill which is performed by impulse without us realizing, and we demonstrate this on a day to day basis. Example of kindness is smiling and greeting people in a friendly manner, whether to friends, associates or total strangers. Another example is giving a sincere compliment to someone about their hair, eyes, smile, laugh, an item of clothing or jewelry and so on. In fact such people find a reason to compliment.

The attribute of kindness helps you to have positive outlook on different aspects of life which is demonstrated by caring attitude, or complementing on having a job well done. It can be helping someone on to wear a coat or take off their coat, opening a door, saying please, thank you, excuse me, and other common courtesies that unfortunately are not very common these days, because we don’t impart this skill to our younger generation. Parents play a key role in developing this skill, if they are arrogant, the children would also develop arrogance which is an opposite virtue of kindness. Developing kindness helps people shun the negative traits like gossiping, fault-finding, or making negative remarks etc.

It is not too late; you can still develop this skill by being polite and deliberately trying to use our vocabulary full of those lovely, soft adjectives, to call others, such as caring, thoughtful, loving, sympathetic, gentle, considerate, warm, compassionate, understanding, forgiving, friendly, tender, amiable, genial, unselfish, generous, helpful, supporting, nurturing. These are words that acknowledge, respect, words that build bridges between different living beings, be it an animal, be it a plant or be it a human being. So just don’t waste any more time; start using these words and slowly you can develop this as a habit. We human being are capable of such beautiful changes and development. It is sad that we don’t inculcate this virtue in our children, who are the peace maker of the future and creator of  this world a place worth living.

We follow different religious beliefs to guide us to be a better human being and no religious belief, I believe, suggests that we should have hatred towards each other, kindness is such a virtue that can help us make this world a better place, so don’t waste any more time get into action by using soft words and start appreciating others. You will notice that you have started making change to those with whom you are interacting. As more and more people join the Kindness Revolution, the downward spiral of society fueled by selfishness, materialism and greed will be slowed, and even reversed. Just remember that money, position are all materialistic and is not permanent, it will go away from you one day or the other, so why go after that which is not yours. When you develop the skill of kindness you will promote an enhanced feeling of 'belonging' in the community and the society you live in, and this will give you a  greater sense of meaning and purpose to your life.