Compassion Is A Practically Acquired Knowledge, Like

If It Is Not Tempered By Compassion, And Empathy, Reason Can Lead Men And Women Into A Moral Void.

If It Is Written And Read With Serious Attention, A Novel, Like A Myth Or Any Great Work Of Art, Can Become An Initiation That Helps Us To Make A Painful Rite Of Passage From One Phase Of Life, One State Of Mind, To Another. A Novel, Like A Myth, Teaches Us To See The World Differently; It Shows Us How To Look Into Our Own Hearts And To See Our World From A Perspective That Goes Beyond Our Own Self-interest.

Religious People Often Prefer To Be Right Rather Than Compassionate. Often, They Don't Want To Give Up Their Egotism. They Want Their Religion To Endorse Their Ego, Their Identity.

Ironically, The First Thing That Appealed To Me About Islam Was Its Pluralism. The Fact That The Koran Praises All The Great Prophets Of The Past.

Alas, All Traditions Lose Their Primal Purity And We All Fail Our Founders.