Sheela never meditated. Not only that, you must have observed, she never even listened. While I was speaking she was sleeping. All the years in India, the time of my discourse was the time for her to sleep. Perhaps she was saving that time for the night with the boyfriend.

As far as I am concerned, I accept all types of people. I don’t make conditions. Whoever comes to me, he is welcome.

Even if Sheela comes back – as a person, as an individual – she will have my trust and love just the same. I will not support her actions, her illegal and criminal actions. For that she will have to go to the court, go to the police.

And my suggestion will be that it will be better to come and confess everything before the court, and say to the court, “These are my acts and I am ready for the consequences. And don’t be soft towards me. Be as hard as I have been with these poor people.” That will give her dignity, respect. You will start feeling proud of her.

Rather than hiding in the Black Forest like a criminal – and how long can she hide? My sannyasins are all over the world. They have already reached the place where she is hiding. They have informed us that the people who are with her are almost in a sick state – guilty. They have committed a crime against those who had loved them.

Their guilt will kill them. At least, it will keep them unhealthy psychologically. They may go mad.

My suggestion is they should come back. Our love is unconditional.

And I would like to make one point clear: that a person can act in a wrong way; that does not mean that the person becomes wrong. Action is a small thing. A person is a tremendous reality. And the action is already past, and the person has a pure future in front of him.

If he hides the action he destroys his own future, because that action will go on and on in his mind as guilt. If he confesses it and is willing to take whatever punishment is needed for it, he will clean himself completely. His future will become pure.

Confessing to the court, she will get the most lenient punishment. And I would like to tell to the court that no criminal needs punishment; all criminals need treatment.

For centuries criminals have been punished and you have not been able to change anything. Criminals go on growing; then you grow more courts, more advocates. It is an unnecessary burden.

And the criminals – even if you imprison them, you are doing an absolutely irrational act, because living five years or ten years in jail means living in the university of criminology, where all the real masters of crime are. You will learn more, and you will learn one thing from all great criminals: that to commit a crime is not illegal, but to be caught is illegal.

So all that you have to do is not to be caught; you have to be more clever, more cunning. Crime is not the problem. The problem is being caught.