By: Adriana Ramírez – Peace Agent Colombia

In today´s world apply for a scholarship it´s something that a lot of students and young professionals do. Most of the time applicant’s interests are to learn something and to obtain a new degree or diploma. In some other occasions, people see these programs as their gateway to an unknown destination of the world where they could experience a different culture and meet people with different backgrounds.

When I arrive to Bangkok on June 13th I honestly thought that I and the other twenty eight participants of Global Peace on the Move X were guided by one of those two reasons. But time probes me wrong… almost thirty days later I realize that all of us, consciously or unconsciously, were searching one goal only.

To realize that we have to spend twenty days sharing almost every minute of the day with each other. We have to learn our names and our countries, in many occasion our jobs or our fields of study. We have to share meals, walks, special activities, our bedrooms, the meditation room, the cleaning duties and our free time.

After a few days at the island we started to feel more comfortable with each other, we started kidding around, imitated each other accents, share experiences of our inner peace time, talk about the expectations after the retreat, about our favorite meditation technique and about our preferences concerning the time of the day when we like to meditate the most and even about the teaching monks and their particular styles to guide the sessions.

Without even notice it, we developed a language of our own. A little bit joking but applying the teachings of the monks, we started to describe and understand things saying if this or that was or wasn´t sabai… Then it was funny, but now I can see how we were changing and how we were actually giving up our expectations and just enjoying the moment, the magical place, each other company and the lessons that we were receiving.

Despite the different ways to understood the meditation experience, the differences related to our physical abilities, to our capacity to be completely still, to stay awake, to overcome the pain in our back and legs, the hit or the cold of the room...when we meditate together we started to create a unique atmosphere. We started to create a rhythm of our own full of notes, full of different chords and interpreters.

We saw and lived how we didn´t need to be a group with members that are or feel obligated to think, believe and act in the same way. We experience how the acceptance of others was what we needed to embrace in order to truly understand what Peace Revolution it´s all about.

We were able to realize that when we observed that some members of the group were able to be still for the full meditation session while other needed to change their posture several times and others just needed to go out of the room for a few minutes… When we saw how some of the participants were really experts in yoga while some of us can´t even keep the balance during morning exercises and, when some believe that silence during the day was important to maintain the peacefulness after meditation and other enjoy to laugh at loud, sing, joke and talk to others. None of those differences matter at all.

Every single movement, every breath, every laugh, every thought, was part of a unique dynamic, every sound was part of a symphony, and every individual was a part of something bigger. We were running an orchestra, and every one of us was important to make it work. Even if sometimes we thought that we were starring a solo.

In that moment I think that we all understood that peace and harmony are not related to the homogenization of ideas, thoughts, feelings and points of view but to the coexistence of all the above in a universe of respect.

That´s what Peace Revolution taught us during our fellowship and that´s why the last night we meditate together our eyes were full of love, tears and gratitude. And that´s why when we said goodbye we felt sad to leave that magical island, our great teachers and each other.

I know with no doubt that when every single one of us arrived home from this amazing journey, everybody felt that something very deep inside has change.

Twenty nine hearts, twenty nine minds, millions of thoughts, tons of expectations and after twenty days in the magical island only one goal achieved: happiness.