| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
( January 15, 2014, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Today( January 14) is Thai Pongal. Happy Thai Pongal to all who thank Nature for our Natural abundance. Hindu Tamils celebrate Thai Pongal as farmer’s festival – saying thank you to the Sun.
I now write in response to the Sri Lanka Guardian article ‘Wigneswaran Should Not Lose Time And Opportunities’ by N S Venkataraman of Chennai.
Venkataraman writes ‘C.V.Wigneswaran, Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s northern province was voted to power with overwhelming majority. ………….Wigneswaran should realise that rarely one gets an opportunity to govern a region with such overwhelming popularity and with good will and support from several parts of the world , wishing him to do well in his job. So far, the report card of Wigneswaran shows that he is yet to meet the expectations of the people.’
The two statements are not from the one branch of Governance. The former is politics and the latter is Executive Administration. Let’s not therefore forget that Mr. Wigneswaran needs to renounce his status as Justice Wigneswaran and become independent of his judicial credits to perform as an elected leader. Justice Wigneswaran was elected by the People of Northern Sri Lanka. His first duty is to the people who elected him and not to the outside world. People from all parts of the world may wish Mr. Wigneswaran to do well in his job. But the question is ‘what are they doing for him to produce the outcomes that external investors seek to ‘see’ while keeping the infrastructure going so that Tamils who elected him would feel that his outcomes are their outcomes?’
We encountered the parallel of this in Vaddukoddai area where the first political declaration of self-governance was made in 1976. There is a temple of the people where I believe Truth needs to be the driving force of the activities in that area. This to me is the parallel of Political force through election by independent individuals. Then there is our training center in Vaddukoddai town representing the Administrative value of international standards. I asked the coordinator of the latter to organize a play for Pongal and stage it at the temple. But the coordinator who was driven by ‘outcomes’ used the Administrative force beyond the True and voluntary investment by the regular devotees of the temple where the play was to be staged after Pongal religious ceremony. This was tending towards the locals taking over power to produce their own outcomes as happened through the rebellion. I quickly restructured so the work done would become part of regular Process and would not be seen as special ‘outcome’ through which Public could criticize.
Mr. Wigneswaran if driven by outsiders would become the parallel of the coordinator seeking to show results – towards membership in the Administrative parts of that area. This would result in the locals getting further disenfranchised and is likely to lead to rebellion in the area. The solution was for the student from the training center to merely read out the message to the regular devotees of the temple. As part of our ongoing training, we educated the coordinators at both places that they should not be directly ‘seen’ by the public but needed to be part of the Processes that are the highway from the founders of both institutions. I represent the highest and the deepest investors in both groups and therefore am the parallel of Mr. Wigneswaran. To understand the needs of the people who are regular devotees – I needed to lose consciousness of my status as the Chief Administrator of the training center. But if I had got stuck there – this local group would become a target group for takeover bids to ambitious outcome-driven leaders desiring to ‘show’ numbers and statistics.. We need to plough back benefits / outcomes above the level where the outcomes are likely to lead to take-over bids / top-down oppression or assimilation / submission to being second-class by foregoing our Equal rights for cash.
When we are driven by the seen and therefore the numbers – we stagnate at the primary level of governance. When we are driven by the known we tend to be smart administrators pleasing the external world to get the ‘right’ credits and therefore ‘status’ in those higher circles. Then we lose connection with the primary voters whose power renders us the authority to govern. In administration we need to often mark ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ (the parallel of government and opposition in politics) and hence the separation. Unless we balance the wrongs with our individual / personal ‘rights’ to show a balanced picture – we would lose connection with the roots. Then we would tend to produce excessive ‘rights’ / attractive outcomes when affluent or go into hiding when depressed by too many wrongs. This is also the conflict between East and West – best known through migrants.
I appreciate more and more the message of Bhagavath Geetha – to do the work but not be driven by the benefits. The benefits when not taken are ploughed back to strengthen Due Process / Common Highway that connects all of us to the Truth. Once we take benefits at the local level we stagnate. We need to keep raising the bar until we see no outcome but just feel the work as Energy. Then we represent the whole naturally. Such a person reconciles the two systems Naturally.
Within us the two sides need to travel separately until we are close to that Energy stage. Then the two would merge. If we mix the two indiscriminately – one part of us assimilates with / is take over by the other - as often happens within a migrant. Australian takes over the Sri Lankan driven by money outcomes. Australian assimilates with Sri Lankan for Terrorism Opportunity.
Each one of us needs to invest in work until we reach the peak that is possible by us – at which point we are driven by the Truth we feel not only for us as individuals but for all those who travelled with us along the way – even the ones who blocked our path and tried to highjack the outcomes we had the priority right to produce but did not due to our higher investment in Human Resources and Ownership. Once we prematurely declare/show our ownership we stagnate at that level. The more we plough back the higher we rise to include all in our Common Highway.
 Today( January 14) is Thai Pongal. Happy Thai Pongal...){kind=link}