Circles of Compassion

For me, “circle of compassion is a space where one is deeply concerned about entities present in it.”

Through the generations humanity’s circle of compassion has been expanding, as we found it beneficial for survival. As hunter-gatherers, humans’ circle of compassion was restricted to their mating partners and their offspring. Over time, the circle grew to include their tribe and their nation. Enabled by science and travel, humans’ understanding of others kept expanding. During the 20th century, the circle of compassion took another leap — to include all human kind.

What’s interesting is that it did not stop there! The circle kept growing — not only including animals and all life but even non living, life-giving entities such as rivers; which have been conferred with legal person rights.

Uttarakhand High Court in India, ruled in July 2018 that “The entire animal kingdom, including avian and aquatic ones, are declared as legal entities having a distinct persona with corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person.”

In another ruling, Uttarakhand High Court in India, declared the Yamuna and Ganges rivers as “living entities.” The Indian court’s move comes a week after New Zealand’s Whanganui River became the first river in the world to be granted a legal person status.

With an all-inclusive circle of compassion, the question is, considering humans’ present day lifestyles — which involves consuming products from all over the world that affect people, life and life giving entities — are we able to show compassion through our consumer habits?

The simple answer is probably not. Not because we do not care but because we are not able to make these decisions easily; which involve many factors including convenience, access to alternatives and most importantly information on how a product that we wish to use affects beings and entities that are part of our circle of compassion.

Impactwala wants to provide the missing pieces of information for users to allowing them to make more conscious decisions and effectively express their compassion for all life

TED Talk worth watching — What animals are thinking and feeling, and why it should matter.

Image: Drishti Sharma, Edited by: Laasya Reddy