As a witness for Peace, our role was to witness in two senses of the word: we SAW, and by our presence we offered affirmation by word or example of a solidarity based on love and faith and the Good News. The word that is much used is "accompaniment." Our contribution was less in our doing than our being-with.
The inner self is as secret as God and, like God, it evades every concept that tries to seize hold of it with full possession. It is a life that cannot be held and studied as object, because it is not "a thing". It is not reached and coaxed forth from hiding by any process under the sun, including meditation. All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of presence.