example of Christ who articulated the greatest of altruistic acts when he stated, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). After love of God, to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:38) is the greatest commandment for the Christian.
In the Bible, a lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). The charity that a Christian is called on to aspire to is seen in the example of the Good Samaritan who bandaged, clothed, fed and housed a badly beaten Jewish man left for dead on the side of a road. The significance of this parable is that the Jews and Samaritans did not get along at this time. One’s “neighbour”, therefore, includes even his or her enemies.
Charity has always been a big part of the Christian Church’s mission. From the very early days, Christians organised church funds to feed the needy. Benedictine monks would take in travellers and give them free accommodation and food. Later, orphanages, almshouses, shelters and hospitals were set up - all out of church funds. The importance of charity to the Christian is further seen in the number of Christian charities throughout the world today that do so much to help the poor and other vulnerable and needy people. In Australia, we have the Salvation Army, Wesley Mission, St. Vincent de Paul, Anglicare, Uniting Care, Youth off the Streets and Catholic Mission, amongst others.
Yet it is in our diversity that the power of good is most in evidence. This lucky country has for a couple of centuries offered a welcome to those from other lands looking for a fresh start. Our cultural mix is in our national DNA, it’s part of our lifestyle – it’s who we are. The fact that more than one in four of us wasn’t born here seems unremarkable - as though it has always been thus.18 The second verse of our national anthem articulates this generosity:
For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To advance Australia fair.
In a recent survey, Prasad, writing from Noble Park, Victoria, returns the thanks: “There’s a world of opportunities waiting for me post-high school - this country opens the doors to those wanting to learn and grow. Where I come from if you have no money you have no education. Thank you, Australia.”
A universal and ageless ideal
The ideal of kindness transcends time, faith and culture. The earliest historical records show how humanity has always supported the concept of helping. These historical records go back over 4000 years. The Babylonian King Hammurabai, Confucius, Plato and Buddha were amongst the earliest philanthropists.
Table 1.1
| Source | Quote |
|---|---|
| King Hammurabai | To his subjects: See that justice be done to widows, orphans and the poor. |
| Confucius | He who wishes to secure the good ofothers has already secured his own. |
| New Testament, James, 2:14-18 | How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ”I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,” without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead. But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith. |
| Source | Quote |
|---|---|
| Old Testament: (Micah 6: 8) | And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. |
| The Koran, 4.57 | And (as for) those who believe and do good deeds, We will make them enter gardens beneath which rivers flow, to abide in them for ever; they shall have therein pure mates, and We shall make them enter a dense shade. |
| Dalai Lama | We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace – anxiety, doubt, disappointment – these things are definitely less. |
| Source | Quote |
|---|---|
| Buddha | I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. |
| Ramakrishna | Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then, through His grace, one realises Him in course of time. God can be seen. One can talk to Him as I am talking to you. |
| Swami Vivekananda | The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them. To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion. |
| Source | Quote |
|---|---|
| Aesop | No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. |
| William Wordsworth | The best portion of a good man’s life – his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love… |
| William Penn | I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again. |
Business
Business people have got wind of the power of acts of kindness in recent years in boosting one’s health, mentally and physically – and even financially. The power of the practice of kindness as a tool in business has been explored in several books.19
In The Power of Nice, How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval of the Kaplan Thaler Group, the fastest growing advertising agency in the US, recognise that “nice has an image problem. Nice gets no respect”. However, they argue that niceness is not the same as naivety. On the contrary, “being very nice and placing other people’s needs on the same level as your own will get you everything you want”. In their book, they cite numerous examples about how the good are rewarded – often with commercial success.20
In The Kindness Revolution, Ed Horrell argues that if employers show kindness to their staff, employees will engage in a high level of customer service and profits will, naturally, flow.21
Australians consider visionaries and role models who include Mother Teresa and Gandhi among their ranks, to be the most influential. Such leaders are not just for the history books; in business, it is the supportive and generous leaders who influence and impact the most. The majority (82%) of Australians agree that it is the people-centred leader, one who serves and supports, who has the most influence and impact. The traditional authoritarian leader (only 13% ranked as influential) and the task-driven delegator (just 5%) are rated as having far less influence.
In contrast, Australians