As a foreigner I have experienced the great advantages that come from being so. While you are in your country and your own culture you are suppose to accept the set up standards; in a new environment you are free to accept some things and reject others. You can choose to say some words and simply just don’t speak others, you can dress in a different fashion than everyone else’s, no matter what the culture, the surroundings or society might say about it.
Nevertheless, there are things which are more difficult to be liberated from than others, such as the violence on Colombian ground and one of its hardest forms: the kidnapping. I have never been close to being kidnapped, but I had been in violent areas. The strongest memory I have of such a time is related to a town in the area called el Chocó.
This is typically a department in Colombia with a high number of african descendents, but I was surprised to find at my arrival to San José del Palmar, a basically white population, mostly migrants from other parts of Colombia. There I had the opportunity to coexist with the people, take baths with buckets due to a shortage of water, and to see beauty in nature, so close to me.
I went there to dictate conferences on human values, to different people from various religions. In a certain part of the city, in another side of the mountain, I found myself in front of the resistance of one of my hosts. I didn’t understand much why he was acting so and it was only later that I discovered the reason: somebody had been kidnapped at his own place. He could never forget the feeling of impotence he had while his guest was being removed from there.
In this situation I experienced the power of a pure and positive thought. It worked as a protection to me, no so much physically, but rather psychologically, because I felt protected from the fear that used to pervade in the country then.
I have experienced this protection as an umbrella, which would not allow the rain to get me wet or like a harness that well prevent me from falling or being hurt. There, in those Choacan lands, I saw a man whose violent attitude seemed to create a negative aura around him; at that moment I was bathing in a not quite typical river, with its bed covered with oval form pebbles. I thought positively, I let the purity of my feelings take my mind over. Later they will confirm that in effect, that man was an actor within the violence, but my thoughts had changed him and to me he was a human being. Just like me.
But, besides a feeling of personal protection ¿could it be that the thought might also generate protection for others as well?
Another experience of the power of thought turned out to be almost magic. Trying to cooperate with the kidnapping situation, Brahma Kumaris organized a conference for the families of the people held hostage. In took place in Medellin, with Sister Jayanti, the teacher that coordinates BK affairs in Europe.
Days before the conference, we started to get lots of persistent calls from a lady. She identified herself as the sister of a judge that had been kidnapped. For two years she had not heard a word about him and she wanted to have an appointment with Sister Jayanti. Unhappily we couldn’t arrange for a time in her agenda, but we invited her to the conference. She accepted. I cannot describe what I really felt that day. At some point it was as if I was floating on the air while I translated the sweet and powerful words of Sister Jayanti. In short, she was talking about the importance of thoughts and personal feelings. What each person felt will reach not only those who were suffering but also will reach those who were making them suffer.
At the end of the conference, I had to take my role as organizer, trying to speed up things because we had to go to the airport and be on our flight on time. But, against all odds, that same lady that was so insistent somehow managed to get on the stage and approach Sister Jayanti, who in turn simply held her hand very sweetly, look at her deep into her eyes and repeated what she had just said. The feeling of the moment was great, but we couldn’t give her much time and so we departed.
Two weeks later, her brother was liberated.
Yes, may have been a coincidence.
Yes, may have been that they pay the ransom.
Yes, may have been other reasons, but to me it was the power of that lady’s thoughts that were able to reach her brother’s heart and the hearts of those who were holding him captive.
Very often I prove those types of thoughts. When a problem arises in my life or in the lives of others, before reacting, I go within my own self, gaining access to the power of my own thoughts.
Today it has become my main form of overcoming any obstacle that may arise on my path. I cannot prevent the problems to be there or the violence or the kidnapping of people, but I can change the way I think, protect myself and protect others as well.
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Marcelo Bulk
(this paper was submitted to the Call of the Time, Medellin, December 2010)
