14 November 2013 - QA 1

Gurudev, do you really know what is going on in everyone’s heart and mind? If that is the case, then what do you do when someone lies to you, or makes lame excuses despite you knowing it all?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

See, I give everyone a very long rope (a good amount of margin or freedom to act). So you do what you wish to do, we will see later what to do about it. When someone lies to me, I do feel bad about it, but then such people soon improve and become better in life.
Once or twice they may lie to me, but then they soon realize their mistake and come running to me and fall at my feet saying, 'Oh Gurudev, I am so sorry that I lied to you'.
So you should realize by yourself whether what you are doing is right or wrong.

Once upon a time, there was a very old saint, he had a habit of always praising people, no matter what. People would be surprised on seeing this and would ask him, 'Why do you always praise people, even when they are no good? Why do you only speak about someone’s good qualities? Please tell them their flaws also'.
To this, the saint replied, 'Your miseries will speak out loud about your flaws and bad qualities by themselves. Why do I need to say that?'