RED-FACED SARAH FERGUSON ISSUES AN APOLOGY

DUCHESS OF YORK SARAH FERGUSON
APOLOGISES FOR LETTING PEOPLE DOWN

LONDON - The News of the World scored big with its sting against Sarah Ferguson, who appears a sad and pathetic figure as she names her price: 500,000 pounds. The Duchess of York was caught so red-handed that she made no attempt to spin her way out of the mess, merely saying she was sorry for the serious lapse in judgment and is in a stressful financial situation. Sarah Ferguson was the victim of a sting operation last week when the News of the World filmed her asking for $40,000 in cash as a down payment and a further $700,000 by wire transfer on a deal to introduce an undercover reporter to her ex-husband, U.K. trade envoy Prince Andrew. She told the reporter, who was posing as a businessman: "Look after me and I'll look after you ... you'll get it back tenfold. I can open any door you want." The Duchess, who rents a room in Royal Lodge, the prince's private residence near Windsor Castle, feels she can no longer live under the same roof after trying to sell access to him. In the aftermath of the scandal, Sarah flew to Los Angeles to collect a Variety Award for her charity work.

The duchess, 50, apologized for her “serious lack of judgment” after she was caught telling a News of the World reporter, posing as a business tycoon, that she would “open doors” to her ex-husband if the reporter handed over a $40,000 down payment on the half-million pound payoff. “I very deeply regret the situation and the embarrassment caused,” she said. “It is true that my financial situation is under stress. However, that is no excuse for a serious lapse in judgment, and I am very sorry that this has happened.” She added that the Duke of York “was not aware or involved in any of the discussions that occurred.” Prince Andrew, a UK trade envoy, “categorically” denied knowing about a meeting in which his ex-wife allegedly offered a reporter access to him for cash.


Sarah Ferguson has won some admiration for his charity work and their ability to solve their own financial problems, but this new act of selling influence is regarded as an unpleasant embarrassment she caused the Royal family. Different situations lead us to act well or evil. Mind is not a good counselor, we need a spiritual guide.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The mind can never sit idle. It will either create a hell out of heaven or a heaven out of hell. It is like drift-wood floating on the ebb and flow of good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice. ... The things one now regards as fixed, shall, one by one, detach themselves, like ripe fruits, from one's experience and fall. The wind shall blow them, none knows whither the landscape, the figures, Calcutta, London, New York, the Royal Throne, the Presidential Chair - are facts as fugitive as any institution past or any whiff of mist or smoke, and so is the society and so the world. ... The proverb goes, “Today king, tomorrow nothing.”

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thākura Prabhupāda :
“Vaishnavism Real & Apparent”
Chapter: “Two Minds - Material and Spiritual”
http://www.bvml.org/SBSST/index.htm