Growing our Circle of compassion

Einstein once said, [the human being] experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

It's quite obvious that we don't always see our circle of influence in that manner. So one must really think about their place on this Earth. One can potentially walk down the road, see someone struggling or hurt yet have a preconceived idea of that person's demeanor or that person's threat and the feelings that go with it. So through that process one runs away from the obvious where the obvious being that a person is hurt and needs your help. Now we live in the country here in South Africa that encourages awareness of potential violence and crime and also encourages each and every single person to restrain from being naive about people's good behaviour. But through all this one grows more and more insensitive towards their circle of compassion being for some cultures just your wife and your children and in others maybe including your father and your uncle and aunt. Now one soon realises the everybody else becomes insignificant irrespective of a human calling to have the same feelings towards them. Now that has to change. Because if it doesn't then we grow more and more insensitive and our circle of Compassion decreases  across racial lines, social status, demographic and financial barriers. One creates their own bubble of exclusion for the next person and in so doing regressoes in the human kindness and compassion. 

The Bible is very clear about this, we need to reach out. We need to be able to look Beyond the obvious and sometimes look Beyond our feelings and perceived ideas. The battle is on as human beings are more stressed and in despair more than ever before. We've got to interrogate our patterns and behaviours towards one another and in so doing embrace as you would embrace your child, your wife, your mother, your siblings, or even your dog or cat.