No Acceptance of Truth – no Resurrection for Sri Lanka

| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( April 06, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Today is Good Friday and as usual, I went to Church to feel at least a little bit of the pain that Jesus must have felt when He was tortured for claiming that God was the King of All. I wrote as follows to someone who through the respect he pays us genuinely, makes us feel as if he is part of our family. ‘Uncle and I just returned from Church. I make it a point to go to church on Good Friday. 2012 years after Christ endured that pain, if at least one of us is able to feel some of that pain - He is Truth Itself’

So far we have not seen any direction from the Government and those close to the Government as to how the common person on either side could follow the LLRC direction. It has rather become an International fighting game through Sri Lanka.

I appreciate more and more the path of Truth through my own experiences. It gives me confidence that I am not alone especially when I am in pain. In turn wherever possible, I add myself consciously to those who seem to be in genuine pain. The glory of Eater Sunday would not be recognized if not for the pain of Good Friday. They are relative. When they are Equal, they together give us the full and complete picture of the problem as well as the solution. Once we are part of this big and wholesome picture, we identify with the solution for ourselves. This I now believe was why, I often went to Church when I lost battles against Australian authorities. Then I did not ‘see’ the solution, as I do now. But I felt calm. I went to St. Mary’s Cathedral Sydney whenever I lost in our Courts at Queens Square close by. Now in the comfort of the solution, thinking back, I feel that I was submitting the problem to the Lord in the form of majority faith – this being Christian faith in Australia. Similarly to Lord Buddha in Buddhist part of Sri Lanka and to Mother Kali in Thunaivi-Sangarathai in Northern Sri Lanka. I believe that after doing what I thought I could, I was submitting my work to God through the form in which those who denied me Justice related to God. In other words, I was saying ‘now it is Your problem as much as it is mine’.

I believe that it’s when we have done all we think we could and yet the outcomes were not forthcoming, that we would submit to higher powers. If we are truly born independent – then we must be able to find our own solution. The official status of Jesus was low in the society in which He lived. The level at which Jesus stopped looking to the authorities, but instead to Natural Powers / Truth / God, confirms the level to which effective governance had dropped in that environment. Hence vast majority in that environment did not have the security of good governance and therefore needed to find their own Natural Powers to complete their pictures of independent ownership. Redemption did not come from officials who were already custodians of common benefits and therefore a big part of the cause of their misery through unfulfilled expectations.

To help us appreciate that the official coffers were empty of good governance, Jesus allowed Himself to go through the torture and produced evidence of reality that was often not visible to the governed. This to me was also why Gandhi did not prevent himself from going to prison. Both could have prevented the pain but they did not due to their realization that Truth was far more satisfying than physical comfort and pleasure.

Whilst most of us are not Jesus or Gandhi, all of us have the power to find our own real freedom through our own Truth and therefore be Jesus or Gandhi for our world – the world that we feel a natural part of. Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France claimed during his recent interview with Young Asia Television, that Myanmar (the place where my great-grandfather made a home for himself and our family) was an example to follow in relation to earning better grades with the International community but that this did not mean that Sri Lanka was like Myanmar was when it was defeated at the UN level. To me, if armed power was not an important factor in the war, we would not have given outsiders the power to allocate status to us. If as Dr. Jayatilleka claims, we are NOT like Myanmar in terms of Democracy, then to a subjective audience the example ought to be a nation that has already found the solution at the level of the common person. If the advice is being given to the Government to learn from Myanmar, then it needs to be accompanied by the advice that the Sri Lankan Government and himself as part of that government, need to stop calling the Sri Lankan Government a democratic government. Having it both ways is confusing and very much part of the problem for the educated Sri Lankan trying to reconcile local governance with international governance.

When we identify with those above us in the vertical path or those before us in the lateral path we need to first identify ourselves as being part of them and towards this submit our work to them. For someone who claims to be democratic, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France keeps referring to governments that relied heavily on armed power - such as Cuba and Myanmar as role models in this regard. It’s confusing for the common person.

I identify with Myanmar’s relative progress in democracy, through the quiet dedication of Madam An Sung Suu Kyi. As Lord Buddha showed us (and Dr. Jayatilleka does keeps referring to Lord Buddha), renouncing our desires is the way to attain Nirvana. A steady mind helps us find the solution that comes with the real problem. Keeping the two sides – pain and pleasure equal is the key to identifying with the solution. Hence our elders have recommended that we attribute credit to our elders or those who found the solutions before us – so we have a higher start. When doing so, it is subjective and hence we bring the whole person inside us. When we do so through members of Myanmar’s Military Government – then we do bring in Military Government as part of the problem. The solution must then start from curing ourselves of Military addiction and not as to how we are to ‘win’ at UN level. If we did not cure ourselves, but win at UN level, Sri Lankan Armed Forces are likely to be included in international Armed Forces – at least in their own minds. That would then activate Indian Forces under the guise of Peace-Keeping.

So far we have not seen any direction from the Government and those close to the Government as to how the common person on either side could follow the LLRC direction. It has rather become an International fighting game through Sri Lanka. This to me is the confirmation that the LLRC report is merely for intellectuals supporting armed conflict business from both sides. Likewise the UN Resolution. If an LTTE supporter who is likely to become a rebel in future or a soldier in the Sri Lankan armed forces looking for guidance as to how they should act/behave in such circumstances where they are on their own all s/he has is her/his memory of what the opposition/enemy is like. Who gave them that memory? And with what intent? Did those giving the memory also give the soldiers / rebels the memory of Due Processes that would bring them credit at the international level? The answer obviously is NO for both sides. To the extent we take up that leadership and place the right memories in the minds of those who are likely to use arms to fight for us and/or to follow the laws of their environment and leave the rest to God (as I did) – then we would have contributed in real terms to a better Sri Lanka. I am not able to see any leader on either side do this in relation to the Sri Lankan conflict. If they did – that would be the commoners’ solution.

We should have started acting yesterday – in our own environments more than ‘telling’ others over whom we have little or no direct influence. If we are saying what we are saying to complete the picture from the other side (for example to escalate the conflict) – then we need to be true to ourselves. One who is true to himself would not say that Sri Lanka is a democracy as per world standards. There are pockets of democracy in Sri Lanka but given that majority involved in the issue are using the armed war as their medium, it is a lie to call Sri Lanka a Democracy.

On this Holy day let’s share in the pain of Jesus and accept that our side was / is not democratic. For my side, I believe that without the LTTE Tamils would not have raised this issue to the Global level. With the LTTE we must be ready to shed our status as a democratic community. That’s when we would own the effects of our work at the global level and start seeing the solution and awaken ourselves to a new start – with or without the opposition that has been condemned by us as a Community. Jesus was able to resurrect Himself by accepting the pain on behalf of all His people. No acceptance nor resurrection for Sri Lanka.