Email from Kamalini Kanapathippillai
We Are God’s
Instruments!
The proximity of great
souls reminds us that we are just humble servants who should fulfil
duty with dispassion and faith and leave the rest to God
BY JUSTICE C.V.
WIGNESWARAN
Justice C.V. Wigneswaran
served in Sri Lanka’s judiciary from 1979 to 2001 as an Eastern province
magistrate, a district magistrate in Colombo, then the High Court, Court of
Appeals and finally the Supreme Court. Chosen by the Tamil National Alliance as
their candidate in October, 2013, he ran from the Jaffna district to win as the
Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council, as his country
emerged from three decades of nearly continuous warfare.
Recently i had the
privilege and good fortune to shake hands with His Holiness Pope Francis I at
the helipad constructed in Madhu Church premises in Mannar in theNorthern
Province of Sri Lanka, when he alighted from his helicopter. Thereafter for
some time, that evening and even during the night, a sense of happiness, peace
and relaxation enveloped me. While traveling back to Jaffna from Mannar by car,
I could notice I was smiling. I was totally relaxed. “How come?” I thought.
I had learned in the
course of my studies of Hinduism and other religions that there is an aura
around great human beings that is able to affect you in a positive way. Was I
experiencing that now? I think back about His Holiness, a very simple, humble
human being. His flow of energy towards us was through his eyes. There was love
in those eyes. I had learned that love flowing from a human being to others is
capable of doing wonders. I saw His Holiness driving in an open chariot,
despite his age turning and twisting his body to bless the large humanity
around him and acknowledge their love and enthusiasm. I saw him on television
seated at the Madhu Church, slightly panting after his exposure a little while
earlier. It showed that the flow of love and goodwill takes place despite the
limitations of the body and its faculties.
It is then that I
started thinking. “Who is he?” “Who am I?” “Who are we?” We belong to different
religions; we come from different countries. Colors of our skin are different.
Our tongues speak dif-ferent languages. Our customs and backgrounds are
different. Our conditionings are different. Yet we can love a fellow human
being. How is it possible? Probably it is because we are essentially divine.
Our inner beings must contain the spark of the Divine which makes us love
fellow human beings. Have I not learned Anbe Sivam—Love is God?
As a child, I went to
the Holy Family Convent in Anuradhapura. The nuns there would say, “We are all
sinners. Only Lord Jesus Christ can redeem us. If you become a Catholic, you
will be re-deemed.” I remember running up to my father one evening, when I was
five or six years old, complaining that I am a sinner and I need to get saved
by Lord Jesus Christ. I asked my father whether I should become a Catholic. My
father just laughed and showed me the elec-tric light flashing from the
ceiling. “What color is that light?” he asked. “White,” I replied. “Suppose I install
a blue shade over it, what would the color be? “Maybe blue?” I said. “Good!
Suppose I install a green shade?” “Green.” “That is it, my son! Life is how we
see it. And what we see is dependent on how we see it. Your teacher is a
Catho-lic nun. She sees life the way she has been trained to see it. She sees
through the blue or green colored shade. Do not be worried.
You will realize that
what we seek is the white bulb not the colored shade.” I do not think I
understood fully what my father said until later, when I was mesmerized during
my student and early professional life with what J. Krishnamurthi, the world
renowned philosopher, had been saying. “We are conditioned to look at life in
particular ways as a Hindu, as a Christian, as an atheist, as a communist and
so on. But Truth lies beyond those conditionings.” It was an extension of what
my father had been saying. I thought to myself, probably the Truth lay beyond
the blue and green shades!
I come back again to my
question, “Who are we?” TraditionalHindu way of life defines a person’s
development physically and mentally as developing from a student’s life
(brah-macharya) into a householder’s life (grihastha), then into a life of
retirement (vanaprastha) and finally to sannyasa (renunciation of the world).
When I was on the
threshold of a sannyasi’s life, I was forced into politics. From an old man’s
life of ease and relaxation, love and affection, I was trans-posed into the
hubbub of politics. Fear, lust, anger, jealousy, confused thoughts, selfishness,
violence, malice and murderous instincts were all around me. There were times I
asked myself the question,
“Who am I? What am I
doing here?” It was a dif-ficult question to answer. I was used to a judge’s
pattern of life. I had lived a relatively ivory-tower existence. The sufferings
of people were known to me only through the lens of a professional judge and
that of the newspapers and TV. I was now face to face with people. People who
strove to kiss my fingers, people who fell at my feet, people who expected an
end to their sufferings through me!
“Good Lord! What have
you done to me? Who am I to be what they want me to be?” I asked. Then it
dawned on me—I am nobody. But He is everybody. It is He who is in everything
and everybody. This person identified as myself is only an instrument. I have
to move on to the best of my ability with all my limitations and disabilities.
He will take care of His instrument. I am in His hands. He directs.
Sometimes why I am
directed in a particular way is not understood by me. Then I understand. He
knows where we are going. We do not know. There are pleasurable moments and
painful moments. But they don’t belong to me. I am only an instrument.
Take the pleasure and
the pain as they come. He knows what is best. When people fall at your feet,
think of Him and ask Him to bless them. When people kiss your fingers, it is
His fingers they are kissing! Keep the fingers clean and tidy. Because He
dwells in them and at any time people would want to kiss His fingers. When a
person praises me, I smile inwardly. When did I do anything they say I did? He
did it. It is to Him all credit should go. I am an onlooker. When they
criticize me, inwardly something says, “Why do you worry? They are criticizing
Me.” Then I get back to a state of equilibrium.
Politics has taught me
more religion than all I had learned at the feet of holy men and women whom I
have had the privilege of meet-ing—so many of them!
I had learned of centers
of consciousness, or chakras—muladhara, svadhishthana, manipura, anahata,
vishuddha, ajna and sahasrara. They have various attributes. We are generally
living at the level of the first three or four. Memory (muladhara), reason
(svadishthana) and willpower (manipura) are the attributes of the first three
chakras. Most of our energy is dissipated at this level. Only at the level of
cognition (anahata) do we start looking at ourselves, our mind, our personality
and question ourselves. “Who are we?” “What are we?” “What do we like?” “What
do we dislike?” “What should I do if any quality of mine is reprehensible?” and
so on. When we improve or progress, we move up to divine love (vishuddha). As
you improve, it is as if some form of mercury is rising along your verte-bral
column. It goes up and comes down. Sometimes it reaches even beyond vishuddha.
Coming into contact with
holy men like His Holiness the Pope, or the Dalai Lama, whom I had the
privilege of meeting recently in Delhi, you realize that love is eternally
flowing out from them, since they are always at the level of the vishuddha
chakra or above. In their presence we mortal humans are able to suddenly reach
up to their love, like the mercury in the thermometer. Suddenly our sense of
love and well-being rise up in our hearts to touch or mingle with the love
emanated by such holy men and women. You feel humbled in their presence. You
feel you are nothing in their presence. You are deeply washed by their love. It
was such an ablution that I ex-perienced in the presence of His Holiness Pope
Francis I—a simple, humble, noble human being. I was able to recognize who I am
in his presence—just a receiver of love. Energy, which is all pervading, flows
through such humans in the form of love, and we are but mag-nets, instruments
which catch that love. For a while their love works in us and through us. Then
it is gone. We get hooked into more mun-dane matters.
But the question “Who
are we?” still remains. “Who am I?” “Who are we?” There is no doubt that we are
a combination of body, mind and intellect. But there is also a spiritual aspect
which envelops us at the fringe of the body, mind and intellect level.
Saint Valmiki was able
to transform himself from the body level to the spiritual. He was a bandit
living at body level who changed because of his chance meeting with the Saptha
Rishis (Seven Saints). Saint Sundaramurti Nayanar was able to reach the fringes
of the spiritual dimension at the mind level. It was while he was preparing for
his marriage that Lord Shiva intruded into his life. At the level of the higher
intellect, Goddess Devi helped Adi Shankara. Various incidents at their body,
mind and intellectual levels transposed them into the spiritual dimension. When
you are an instrument in the hands of the Divine, He will decide when you
should enter the por-tals of His privileged domain. You do not have to desire.
It will take place in time.
So, let me conclude this
piece by saying that my little experience in this life of 75 years has taught
me that we are but instruments. He knows what to do with us. Just have faith in
Him and carry on to the best of your knowledge, ability and skill. This is an
easy philosophy of life, in essence the same as Krishna prescribed in the
Bhagavad Gita—disinterested devotion to duty! There is nothing left for us
except to do our duties to the best of our abilities, because we are but
instruments in the hands of the Divine!
65 july/august/september, 2015 hinduism today
