Let us be the leaders our country needs

By Suryamithra Vishwa

Last week this page carried a review of an internationally award winning book titled ‘Spirituality Demystified – Understanding Spirituality in Rational Terms’. This is a book that breaks into small bits the misconceptions of that mysterious word ‘spirituality’, showing us what happens when our lives are governed by self-less happiness, and brings us face to face with great cosmic realities through the lens of quantum physics and science to show us what could be our greater purpose in life; beyond self-interests.

It showed us, through the lens of science, that happiness is an inner realm as opposed to pleasure that is an addictive and leading to greed. I began this article with reference to the above mentioned book to talk about a kind of leadership that we unfortunately have not been seeing in Sri Lanka in many spheres.

If we talk about what leadership has descended to in Sri Lanka whether it is political leadership or any other today, we can clearly see that it is affiliated to addictions such as greed, self-aggrandisement and the mere coveting of wealth. This addiction is the same as drug addiction. What is the solution? How do we ‘kill’ or ‘hang’ these addictions while the inner core of humans are reformed and set free?

It can be said that human life is too short to truly graduate from the academy of life to emerge as a ‘human being’ a being that is fully humane. Few invest in the greatest bank account that humans can invest in – the bank account of introspection and using that introspection to carry out diverse practices to purify our minds. 

However, many of us live much of our life as ‘rote livers’. We are born and tumble through school and then learn things but do not even comprehend why we are learning them, because there has not been any introspection in either those who set those subjects for us to learn, or within ourselves as to how to make use of this learning to make the world a better place. 

We then ‘educate’ ourselves to be ‘machine thinkers’. A machine has no inner reasoning why it is doing a particular thing. It is merely programmed to do so. We in modern society are programmed to think in such and such a way, to see passing of exams as a thing of competition (I have to be better than the other so I get a better school) and emerging from this foundation we see leadership as a position of power as opposed to a position of empathy. For example can we say we have had empathetic leadership, when we have, for example, an education sector, where blatant inequality is institutionalised into the system where few schools are acknowledged as ‘prestigious’ while the majority of schools are lacking even basic facilities and are short of teachers. 

Can we say we have had empathetic leadership in this country, when one section of people – a small section, are super rich and living in luxury and a majority – the poor – live in shanties. 

Leaders are born out of the mass. As a mass of people are we empathetic? When we take the train in Sri Lanka to certain areas and pass hundreds and thousands of shanties where people probably cannot find a way to earn enough for even one meal a day, are we ‘programmed’ to be indifferent? 

There have been few civil non-political leaders, especially youth leaders, who have broken the code of their ‘programming’ to emerge as true leaders and come up with diverse initiatives to address what they have seen as wrong. There are also many social entrepreneurship leaders and business leaders who have attempted to address the gaps that those who have been addicted to power and power alone have created. 

There have also been great leaders this world has seen such as Mahatma Gandhi who had realised that self-purification and distancing oneself from attachment was a basic training that all who truly aspire for wise leadership should stringently carry out. There are many who still do not understand why Gandhi had to go through such stringent processes affiliated with self-denial but Gandhi saw it as an essential task that he first must fulfil within himself to rid himself of his ego so he could be a true leader. 

To lead by example is the only way we can effectively lead. Dualities exist in us. Even the best of us. 

It is up to us which segment is given power. It could probably be said that the time span of one life is akin to a fraction of a second in the great cosmic cycle, with not enough time for us to truly polish to high shine our inner selves and have it manifest in how we act to others around us; how we take action to solve problems that is not faced by us, but others.

To all the problems we see around us, the cause lies in non-awareness and greed. We are often not aware of the reality that is; the reality that everything passes, including our bodies and that we are here for a higher purpose beyond just gathering for ourselves. It is sad that despite being a Buddhist country we have leadership models built entirely on attachment and greed.

How do we change this? The only way to change it is to change within. Whatever positions we may hold or not, every one of us can be a leader by example. If we correct a racist comment of a friend, even one said in passing, and help that person, with all gentleness and understanding, to see the wrong of it, we are at that point a leader. 

How do we inculcate such leadership qualities in a systematic way?  The answer is through the education system. We today have an insular, boring, meaningless education system of a pattern established in a time when the country was in imperialist domain, to fulfil certain agendas that were not associated with either this country, its wellbeing, or its people and their wellbeing. 

The education system is therefore not meant to nurture the inner qualities of the human as the earlier gurukula system of education that we had prior to colonisation. Nor is it meant to bring about the wellbeing of all living beings; man and nature, by devising a lifestyle pattern for the betterment of all, as befitting Sri Lanka’s heritage and natural resources and keeping in mind the overarching philosophical principles of Buddhism that majority of the population follows.

Hence because we do not have leaders born out of such an education base, we have many terrible phenomena; we have liars, rogues, mafia-men, murders and hypocrites who emerge from the womb of this country and don positions of leadership for the detriment of all of us. 

To fall to pessimism however is not the answer. All of us in this country and proudly continue to live in this country have much capacity within this short human life. We have the capacity to pursue true awareness within ourselves and find true inner happiness by separating ourselves from greed and ego. 

And on this foundation we have great capacity to make a change. Let us come up with great ideas, wondrous initiatives that will see our country and people progress and let us develop these initiatives strongly basing ourselves on a firm foundation that is detached from all the trappings of glory, power or superiority.  

To all the problems we see around us, the cause lies in non-awareness and greed. We are often not aware of the reality that is; the reality that everything passes, including our bodies and that we are here for a higher purpose beyond just gathering for ourselves. It is sad that despite being a Buddhist country we have leadership models built entirely on attachment and greed.

How do we change this? The only way to change it is to change within. Whatever positions we may hold or not, every one of us can be a leader by example. If we correct a racist comment of a friend, even one said in passing, and help that person, with all gentleness and understanding, to see the wrong of it, we are at that point a leader