We shall be a mighty kindness. – Rumi (and the Carry the Vision conference brochure)
I was invited to introduce and help launch the Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest at the Carry the Vision 9th Community in Compassion Conference that took place in Silicon Valley on October 19th 2014. It was amazing!
Carry the Vision Executive Director, Shelly Swan and her team took great care of me and all the participants who gathered that Sunday to “awaken the heart of compassion” the theme for the day. This was the perfect opportunity to come together face-to-face after working together “virtually” to produce the 9|11 – 9|21 Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest. Earlier we wrote this story about the emergence of Compassionate Silicon Valley and their unique approach to organizing; we called it the “spiritual element“.
I had no idea how deep, committed and far along Carry the Vision and the many partners including the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council had progressed in creating a culture of non-violence and compassion in their community. The conference was diverse, inclusive, and with seventy youth participating in a parallel event.
Unless we change individually, no one is going to change collectively. For generations we have been waiting for the other person to change first. A change of heart cannot be legislated; it must come out of conviction. – Arun Gandhi (and the Carry the Vision conference brochure)
There’s a great Compassion Games Team emerging in the valley led by a retired IBM engineer and Recipient of the 2014 Hindu American Foundation Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Religious Pluralism, Girish Shah. Girish is a Director of Carry the Vision, a Director of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council and former president of the Jain Center. He is an innovator and committed to making the world a better place.
We started to work with Girish in the roll up to the 2014 Games and then the October conference. Girish quickly understood the Compassion Games, the Leagues and the idea of Coopetitions and saw their application to the tremendous work he’s already doing to unify the human family. Girish and his family are an enormous gift to our world. I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to embarrass him but here’s a summary of what he’s doing to use and expand the Compassion Games:
- He has organized the team Compassionate Silicon Valley that will participate in the World Interfaith Harmony Week Coopetition happening in February in the Interfaith League.
- He is organizing the North American Jain Centers into a Jain Centers League and will conduct their first “Coopetition” – World Compassion Vegan and Jivdaya Day going from November 1 to November 7th.
- He has co-issued and taken the Sun Up Our Sanctuaries Solar Challenge for Compassionate Silicon Valley.
With his collaborators on the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council, Carry the Vision and the many others he has a tremendous Compassion Games team who no doubt appreciate his humble and focused way of making change happen. It is an honor to work with Girish Shah and to enable the Compassion Games platform to grow and expand to accommodate his vision. To the left is the page on the Carry the Vision site that introduces the Compassion Games.
We are enriched by his boundless energy and dedication to nonviolence, spiritual independence, equality, and compassion.