Raviraj Killers Could Quite Easily Decide To Do The Same With His Teacher
By C.V. Wigneswaran -December 21, 2013
C.V Wigneswaran
Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gurur Devo Maheshwaraha Gurur
Saakshaat Para Brahma Thasmai Shree Guruve Namaha.
Dr. Ariyaratne, Reverend Sirs, my dearest brothers and sisters!
It is indeed a great honour to have been invited as Chief Guest to your Annual General Meeting and to be called upon to address you. Dr. Ariaratne is an old friend of mine. As a student at Royal I had heard of the Teacher at Nalanda though it was much later that I came to know Ari personally. To those of us who had romantic visions of the type of work done by Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave , Jayaprakash Narayan and indeed even of Mother Theresa among common people, their counterpart in Sri Lanka was Ari. His Sarvodaya Movement has now come a long way, thanks to his illustrious son and others who have transformed the Movement to face up to the rigours of modernisation in a competitive, commercial, computer oriented world.
Yet the spirit of Sarvodaya lies in our hearts. The spirit of Shramadana too has its genesis in our hearts. As the word Shramadana connotes it is the sacrifice of our efforts. Sacrifice for what? For Sarvodaya which is the awakening in all. You had set up three principles to achieve such a goal -Truth, Non Violence and Self Denial. So you are all in a journey of self denial, non violently and truthfully to reach the goal of Sarvodaya, which is the awakening in all.
It is the awakening of our innate basic humanity that could bring peace to this World.
Peace cannot be achieved without a change of heart. This change of heart comes when the pivot of decision making in one’s life shifts from the self to an ambience of love pervading all around us. There is natural good will, concern and love in the hearts of all human beings but most often untapped.
Unfortunately all our decision-making centers around the Self. Therefore our decisions are based on what “I” need, what “We” need or what brings happiness to “me” or “us”. When a politician has to make a decision which should bring satisfaction to most human beings around him, very often he inquires as to what the benefit would be to him monetarily or politically and thereby there is misery all around him.
A friend of mine became a Deputy Minister. I asked him what he intends doing now that he is a Minister. He said immediately “Don’t you know how much I spent on my Election? I intend earning all that money quickly!” So we spend money to obtain positions and power and then our positions and power are used to earn money. Therefore primarily our thoughts centre around us and our welfare. To cease to look selfishly from such a stand point is to awaken into another dimension. The dimension of love and care.
This dimension of love and care is what the Major Religions of the world have been preaching to all of us all this time. Christians preached Charity, Muslims preached brotherhood, the Buddhists preached Metta (loving kindness), Karuna (compassion), Muditha (altruism) and Upekkha (equanimity) while Hinduism said Anbe Sivam (God is Love). We have all four religions in practice in this country. Yet there is strife, conflict and confusion. Why is that? It is not difficult to answer that question. I am a man of religion of some sort who was forced into politics. I have found what has gone wrong. Read More
