Inside the Prison Walls

The following story is duplicated from Sheriar Foundation Newsletter, Winter 2013.

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Baba's Love at Work Inside the Prison Walls

For many years, Sheriar Foundation has had a program in place for making books available to people in prison. One can only imagine how much comfort contact with Him can provide to people in such difficult circumstances.

The story of our poignant and growing relationship with one particular prisoner is something we’d like to share with you here.

This prisoner has been in jail since he was 14 and was recently sentenced to sixty-five years to life. The book that we send out most often is Discourses and after this prisoner first read it, he wrote, “Sometimes I’ll read something and just get stuck in wonder for a minute at how others cannot see the Truth written all over the place in His works.”

In his growing love for Baba, he has spoken with many fellow prisoners about Him. His fellow inmates even started adding “Baba” to the end of his first name. Soon letters from prisoners connected to this one person started pouring in and a steady flow of Baba books were streaming out the door. This special prisoner has referred over 20 other prisoners to us who have written requesting Baba literature. Mainly from California but also from Virginia, Florida, Texas, Oregon, North Carolina and Minnesota. Reading his letters and witnessing his incredible attitude in the face of such a situation certainly puts things into perspective.

This prisoner and his cell mate read a chapter from Baba’s Discourses each night after dinner. He wrote this about it, “Just when you think you’re somewhat familiar with the beauty in Baba’s Discourses, He then tends to hit you with another fullfledged burst of beauty from left field, which draws you even closer to Him. Another prisoner who received a copy of God Speaks wrote, “God Speaks blew my wig all the way back.”

Drawing of Baba

As a thank you for the Baba books that we have sent to this special prisoner, he has sent in return a series of beautiful pencil drawings of Baba. One of these drawings is now framed and hangs above the Sheriar Foundation literature shelves in the new store and is shown as an inset in this article.

Over the years we have received more than a dozen letters from him along with a number of his pencil drawings. In one letter he wrote, “Since He has blessed me with conviction, I can’t get enough of Him. . . . What’s funny is that, even today I can still say, ‘Baba was neither accepted nor rejected consciously’. Thus it must follow that He snuck into my house like a perfect thief in the night and – quietly and quickly stole my heart.’ ”

© Sheriar foundation 2013