When you were mediating for Peace in Columbia, initially the FARC were resisting, and then something happened? What brought about this transformation?
That is meditation. We led them into short meditations for three days, and you know what they said, "We have heard of saints, but for the first time we are actually seeing a real one".
They also said, "You are the first one who understood us", and by the end of our visit, on the last day, they came with some stone and said, "Please touch this. Keep it in your room, put your energy and then give it to us”.
I said, “Once I touch it, it's enough, I don't need to keep it with me, you take it”. Then they said, “Please don't abandon us, consider us part of your movement. And please come back”.
Then they came to the press conference and said, “Yes, we adopt non-violence”.
See, it's easy for an atheist to get to know spirituality. The believers think they know spirituality, many times they don't. And, some people become very fanatic believers, who are not very open-minded.
I'll tell you about a bed-time story about Buddha. Lord Buddha never spoke about God because India was the land where everybody knew so much about spirituality, but mostly it was all in the head. So Lord Buddha used to announce the eleven questions that he would not answer. Eleven questions should not be asked, and even if someone asked him, he would not answer. God was one of the eleven questions.
He simply said that there is misery in life, but it is possible to get rid of misery because there is a cause for misery.
One guy came he said, "I believe in God, what do you say?" So Buddha said, "You believe in God, okay, good".
Another person said, "I don't believe in God, there is no God", and Buddha said, "Okay, good".
A third person came and he said, "Some people say there is God and some people say there is no God. I don't know but I want to know".
Then Buddha said, "Oh okay, you come be here and we will discover".
So other disciples who were there got so confused because Buddha agreed with everybody. When they asked him, he said, "You know, the first two people who came had a fixed idea in their mind, they were not open. But the last one was open to knowing and he can reach enlightenment. It's hard for people with fixed ideas to get enlightened". So that's the story.