Alice

A story I read in a "Wise Rabbit" book

"In an ancient time, a prince was born to a rich king. Many astrologers forecasted that he would be a great king. The prince grew up. Strangely, one day when the boy was two years old, his maid servants rushed to see something which the prince did not understand. The prince also ran out. He ran and ran. He came to a village of poor peasants.

There, just near a flat land, he fell into a puddle of mud and cow dung and he soiled his clothes. He began to cry. A peasant who was passing by noticed him. He thought he was an abandoned child, so he felt pity on him and decided to take him to his house. The prince's new home was a small shack, located on a farm. The poor peasant did not search for the child's real parents, because he had to toil day and night to maintain his big family. Neither did his family members make any effort to inquire about Ranjeet's origin and they also ignored the king's messenger who informed the people about the missing prince.

Time past and years elapsed. The boy grew up. The boy did not remember his days in the palace. He had adapted himself to the new surrounding and his new parents.

Because his parents were poor on several occasions he had to go hungry and beg. The boy would have grown up without knowing of his Royal origin. He would have lived as the son of a poor peasant, in misery and poverty, begging for food and clothes.

We are like this beggar prince, not knowing our true heritage, we have inadvertently assumed a false-self in a new environment of suffering. The Alice Project, a place nearby beautiful the Buddhist ruin in Sarnath, laden with green trees and plants, provides not only a home for many animals and birds, also a place for young children to discover their royal heritage and to return to the palace of real self."

"Like Alice who embarked on a great adventure and did not lose herself in Wonderland - a place inside-but found an inner guide (in the form of the White Rabbit). In a same way we should guide our students to discover their true self," says Luigina De Biasi, co-founder of Alice Project. "Our students need to be able to find their way in the world around them through understanding their internal world" she added. "Understanding the internal world needs experiences and we are providing those to our children," she added.