Compassion and Forgiveness at Home

Hi Jim
I was inspired to read your blog entry. It reminded of some of my own experiences with the Foundation...

I remember an amazing story about a woman who was caught stealing at our Indian ashram last year in 2009. It seems that during satsang each night this woman went around cutting the locks off of people’s doors and stealing their things. The woman was caught and handed over to the authorities. However, it turned out that the woman was pregnant and the jail had no room appropriate for her. Guruji was called and his instruction was to return the woman to our ashram, the very place where she had been stealing, where we would care for her. Guruji then asked some teachers to sit with the woman to hear her story about why she was stealing. He also told the teachers to bring the woman gifts of clothes and other things. Our ashram made her comfortable until the authorities could make other arrangements. Since I have known Guruji I see him patiently extending extraordinary compassion and understanding to people again and again – no matter what their mistakes or attitude in life have been.

-Patty