Journey toward Compassion with Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan

 Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan – The last day-

This Morning I feel an intense sadness as we move into what is likely to be the last day of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan short Life. My heart aches for the loss of their future and for those who would have been helped to turn their lives around had Sukumaran and Chan’s bid for clemency been upheld.  I feel the grief and loss for their families and the sense of utter desolation and impotence they must feel right now whilst trying to hold it together til the end. So much has been done by their families, friends, lawyers, supporters in fighting for clemency; for Compassion and for a sense of humanity to prevail without success. Talks of bribery, corruption, political perversion has been repeated over and over yet here we are seemingly just a few short hours before these men and 8 others including one young mother will be blindfolded. shackled and led to their death by firing squad. Where is our humanity, our Compassion and our humility in the midst of this tragedy unfolding.

Compassion

Where is our humanity, Compassion and our Humility in the midst of this tragedy

(two quotes from messages shared on social media this morning)

“I feel for their families, but certainly not them”, “our politicians have so much more important things to do than to waste time on a pair of drug dealers, like 22 million people to worry about”

I am looking at a body of water in which millions, trillions of emotions seem to reflect, surge  and crash as the waves pick up billions of grains of sand  to pound them down again with the next crash of the next wave. I feel my senses alert and open to the echoing vibrations of the entire world, I feel it; I hear it; I sense it; I experience it; I can only imagine the sharpened and heightened senses of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.

It is in the feeling and experiencing of deep emotions that are not only our own but belong to others that breaths life into our existence. It gives us the ability to understand what the term ‘humanity’ means, what it is. Emotions allows us to connect with the collective unconscious, that part of our unconscious mind which is derived from ancestral memory and experience and is common to all humankind as distinct from our own individual unconscious.and It is in our connection with the collective unconscious  that we learn about compassion, empathy and humility because we recognize that Sukumuran and Chan are not separate from us but reflect another aspect of our own mortal self.

image

Forgiveness – There before the Grace of God go I

When we have the courage to feel compassion for another even someone who has done something terrible and made choices that harmed others but have since reformed and given back to society not just in reforming themselves but in changing the lives of many others for the better then perhaps we are in a place that allows us to also have the capacity to make as much a difference as Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have made since their arrest and conviction.  Forgiveness is the only right course when true remorse has been shown through action, how can it be any other way!

Compassion, Empathy, humanity and humility  – There before the Grace of God go I

image

Blessings to you Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan;  Blessings to the other 8 prisoners to be killed by firing squad in the early hours of tomorrow morning; Blessings to all your families and friends and supporters

Blessings to all and may we all be forgiven

Pateena Donnelly-Gorissen

image