Source: The Daily Pioneer
NEW DELHI, INDIA, April 24, 2001: A Norwegian man arrested and jailed in India for smuggling heroin has made such a remarkable transformation through the Vipasana meditation program the jail offers that the Norwegian government is looking into instituting the same program in its jails. Vipasana is a Buddhist meditation method involving long hours of meditation and silence packed in a short period, such as ten days. It was instituted when Kiran Bedi was warden. Norway became aware of the man’s transformation after his mother visited the jail and was astounded at her son’s improvement. She told Tihar authorities that she had regained her son, whom she had lost to drugs. A Norwegian TV crew shot a film on the man and other foreigners in Tihar, many of whom had benefitted from the meditation and the jail’s other innovative rehabilitation programs.