This morning, Meghna shared one of the most amazing stories about her daughter -- four year old, Reva.  

It seems that a mosquito was bothering Reva and to protect her, Meghna squatted the mosquito and it died.  Witnessing the event, Reva was startled!  She got upset and asked, "Why did you kill it?"  Meghna responded, "Because it was biting you."  With wide-eyed exclamation, Reva responded, "But it was searching for her mom!"  Then the four-year-old Reva got up and took the dead mosquito in her palms.  "What are you doing," Meghna asked her.  "Praying", responded Reva.  Then she said her multi-lingual prayer, "Jeje meri mamma ne mosquito ko mar diya hai (God my mom has killed a mosquito).  Please forgive her."  She then made Meghna fold her hands, apologize to Jeje (God) and to dead mosquito -- and made her promise to never kill a mosquito again.

Soon after hearing this story, I had an opportunity to spend some time with Jayesh-bhai and Bhante Prasheel Ratna (a monk working towards an international Buddhism conference in Gujarat in 2016).  In a conversation on compassion, Jayesh-bhai shared an experience he had during Gandhi3.0 retreat.  During one of the breaks, an ant that was accidentally crushed by the foot of a passerby.  Seeing this from a distance, Yuka Saionji (one of the retreat participants) twinged in pain; and watching her, Jayesh-bhai spontaneously picked up the ant in his palms, and went over to Yuka as they both prayed for the well being of the ant.  Almost magically, in a few moments, Jayesh-bhai felt sensations in his palms.  The ant had started moving!  He opened his palm and gently released the ant as it walked off.  Watching this, tears of compassion flowed from Yuka's eyes.

I felt so grateful to have heard these stories, and I couldn't resist sharing the stories at today's Awakin Circle on spontaneous resonance.  Meghna also shared that her first reflection after the incident was, "Gratitude to all the visible and invisible forces nurturing the little one".   Indeed we all are what we are because of so many visible and invisible forces!