La Habana, Cuba, June 28: There was an historic change of heart and strategy in Cuba when Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar met with the FARC leaders.
On his three-day-visit to Cuba, Gurudev had several rounds of discussions with the FARC members in an exercise of confidence-building in the peace process, which had many hurdles from the past three years.
FARC has requested Gurudev to actively participate in the peace process. He said, “In this conflict, everyone should be considered as victims. And inside every culprit, there is a victim crying for help.”
After many discussions, the FARC finally agreed to embrace the Gandhian principle of non-violence. Commander Ivan Marquez declared in the press conference that they would adopt it.
The FARC agreed that hatred had derailed the peace process. Ivan Marquez said, “We will work for peace and justice for all the people of Colombia.”
Sri Sri insisted that time delay would be counterproductive as people were losing faith. He urged both sides to hasten the process and not to be stuck in small details.
The FARC has agreed to speed up the process and give some surprise breakthrough for peace building in the coming days.
Ivan Marquez, Pablo Catatumbo and his whole group thanked Sri Sri for his patience, understanding and wisdom. One of the members, Commander Pastor Alope, remarked that spiritual wisdom had been missing, and was very much needed.
Gurudev declared that his foundation, The Art of Living, would continue to do trauma relief programs for victims and bring the much-needed healing touch to the Americas.
On June 24, Gurudev had an hour-long meeting with the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos in Bogota.
Gurudev thanked the Indian Ambassador C. Rajasekhar, the Colombian Government, Cuban Government, Colombian Ambassador to Mexico and all the members of the FARC for this historic meeting.
