Rescuing animals takes a lot of kindness.
As human beings, we need to do all we can to bring more kindness into our lives.
I discovered New York City didn't have a free spay and neuter clinic.
So I thought, I'll create that clinic.
Madonna was a student at that time. She'd come to our yoga school.
And so I asked Madonna for a donation.
She said, a donation.
I know you love cats Sharon, but okay, whatever.
And she gave generously.
But with the note, and you know I hate cats.
But I said, but you love Chihuahuas.
And Sting was wonderful.
Sting and his wife Trudy gave us a huge donation.
And Sting did some great publicity shots with Pepe, who was our mascot.
He was a little Chihuahua.
The animal mukti clinic has actually reduced the number of animals that are euthanized in New York City by 37%.
Wow.
So Allie has a little kitten.
She was found in a subway and her tail had been chopped off by a train.
We rescued her.
And here she is with a shorter version of her original tail.
But nonetheless can wag it quite well.
And is quite happy.
My first spiritual teacher, when I came to him to receive instruction.
And he said, why do you want to learn this?
And I said, because I want to be enlightened.
And he laughed at me.
And he said, you want to be enlightened?
Oh, okay.
You have to master three things.
You have to learn how to cook.
You have to learn how to clean.
And you have to take care of someone who's dependent upon you.
I just said, what?
But I have come to be humbled by those very important teachings.
Learning how to cook and cook for others and working with food teaches you so many things that you can't even describe in words.
And cleaning is very humbling.
And taking care of somebody.
Taking care of the cats that are dependent upon me has taught me compassion.
And taught me to pay attention.
The cats that have lived with me have shown me that no matter what, life is pretty precious.
I had lost a baby and I couldn't stand to eat.
And so I became very severely anorexic.
I just couldn't stand to have anything inside my body.
But I had cats that needed to be fed.
And the trauma caused me to be very sad and very depressed and very guilty.
I felt guilty.
I felt like I was a terrible person.
But then I had these cats around me who needed love, affection and food.
I didn't think I needed food, but they needed food.
And so they brought me out of that because I had to care for them.
And so I guess my compassion for them pulled me out of my self-loathing that seemed to have enveloped me.
I've learned some very important lessons and my cats have helped me to learn those lessons.
That's a good boy. Look at that stripy boy.
Look at that stripy boy. Come on.
Come on now. Let's go for the walk, stripy. Come on. It's all right.
