Gurudev, as a budding writer, what seva can I do?
It is very good that you can write. There is a lot of work that you can do. Contact our website team and our ABC (Art of Living Bureau of Communication). They are looking for writers. There are so many projects happening in The Art of Living around the world and we need good writers to put those things in the right format.
Recently, I went to Cuba and met with the FARC (a rebel group) people from Columbia. They are all Communists, so at first they were very hesitant. They said, "We had never thought we would be so lucky as to meet a living saint. We only saw saints in wood and stone".
On the first day, they were reluctant, but by the second and third day, they changed totally. When I was leaving, they said, "Please don’t abandon us", and I told them, "Look, 50 years of war, 2.6 million people have been killed in this. How long are you going to go on like this?" They said, "No, non-violence is not practical. Please don’t tell us, we can’t do this. It will be hypocrisy to say that we will follow Gandhian principles. We are not going to do it".
I told them, "What do you mean by hypocrisy? You want to have the same fate as Prabhakaran or Saddam Hussein? See what happened to all these people? You will be finished. Wake up now".
I told them, "Today you are also victims, and you play your victim card. Don’t be aggressive, stop bombing".
Finally, they agreed. They said, "We will do social justice through Gandhian principles of non-violence". And the war which had been raging for the last 50 years came to an end. They unilaterally announced ceasefire!
You need some people to tell them, talk to them. They said, "This is what was missing in our movement – spirituality. We had dedicated ourselves for the cause of social justice, we have been fighting, but this was missing - your guidance was missing. Please keep guiding us".
There were 13 of them and 3-4 of us, and we sat with them for three days. Then they started coming with me wherever I went. I went to the Indian Embassy and they also came with me! They did meditation, they had Indian food, perhaps for the first time in the Indian Embassy. They were like devotees, very happy. Their faces started relaxing. So we should keep doing what we can.
And then one journalist asked me, "How come so many big countries - Norway, America, Cuba - all of them were trying to get these people to announce ceasefire and they were not ready. What is it that you said to them?"
I said, "It is not what we say but what we are that makes a difference".