"Let me take a few minutes to tell you a little about myself and my present situation. Hopefully it will help you to know what it is I'm trying to find. My name is Tommy, I'm in my mid-20's, born Sept. -, 195-. I'm presently in the Idaho State prison for first degree murder, two counts. I was arrested in November of 1974, taken to trial, found guilty and sentenced to death, March of 1976. In October of 1977, the Idaho Supreme Court vacated my death penalty, but I'm under review to receive a newly enacted death penalty in May of this year. At that time the courts will decide if I can be given the new death penalty or a double life sentence.
"These two charges in Idaho aren't the only ones I have. There are seven more in other states. Please let me explain why I did these cold-blooded, without any mercy, killings. In April of 1974, 11 men entered my home in Portland, Oregon, raped my 17-year-old wife, who was three months pregnant at the time, then threw her four stories out our apartment window"
May 17, 197-
Dear Tommy,
"Your letter has touched me and Sita deeply.
You're a beautiful brother and we're very happy to know you. In one sense, you're coming from a very unusual place; yet in another sense, you're in exactly the same place we all are - simply a being who's becoming conscious of the journey to God, and wondering what you can do to get on with it.
"The first step is to begin quieting the mind, and this is what meditation is all about. All the answers you need are already within you (and always have been), but the noisy mind can't hear them clearly. Noise comes in the form of desire, anger, fear, greed, self-pity, guilt, shame, doubt, unworthiness, pride, selfishness, pettiness, envy, and so forth. The way most of us are raised, our lives are pretty much a confusing combination of such noise from the time we wake up in the morning until we drop off to sleep each night.
"No wonder we get so tired!
"Daily meditation practice helps us to begin hearing it all a lot more clearly, and also gives us the strength and discipline to live in harmony with what we hear. As one of our prison friends often ends his letters, 'No one said it would be easy.' But as our meditations deepen and we begin experiencing higher and higher states of awareness, these experiences help us to put our life-dramas in proper perspective. The physical world is not the whole show; this one body and lifetime are not what we're all about.
"The game is far bigger than we usually imagine, and every thought, word and deed counts; nothing goes unnoticed and nothing happens by chance. There's no slippage in the system whatsoever.
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