Questioner: if we encourage a person, he will perform well in his team, and we also will progress well ourselves. Dadashri says that encouragement can be done in three ways, with the mind, with words, and with action. Please can you explain in detail as to how this can be done?
Pujyashri: When we encourage a person, it means that we are boosting the positive points in the person. Thus, if he has done something good, you keep this point in mind, and when the time is right, you casually express this in words. This ‘encouragement’ will reach his heart. When you appreciate him in person, it is also encouragement. It can also be done with your mind through thoughts. Due to your ego you do everything yourself and do not allow others to do it. When someone else does the same job, and people praise him, you start finding faults in his work, saying that he is creating a mess and therefore, you have to straighten it out. Never mind, if he may have done only 20% of the work well, you should appreciate that. Faults are what we see through our intellect, whereas he may have done the job 90% well. Therefore because of our ego and intellect we discourage him. This should not happen.
With your speech and action you can heartily express your positive views on his work. Even that will give him satisfaction. Once you allot the work to someone, look at the result positively, and encourage him for the work done. In case you need to point out his mistake, you should only suggest, for example, “If you can alter it in this way, it would be better. Think about it.” By saying so, it will not hurt him. He will be discouraged if you make allegations that he has done the job wrong. “You have done the job well but you can still improve upon it.” Show him how he may make some changes. If you find that he has done the work completely opposite to the instruction, instead of ridiculing it, which would discourage him, it would be better not to talk about it. It would not benefit you to make allegations or talk about his mistakes. Instead of improving his behavior, which would be a blow to his understanding. To make him realize the mistake in his given work, we should make him understand that he should remain alert to instructions, since his previous behavior led to mistakes in his work. However, we are at fault when we cast a direct blow to his ego, thereby he feels discouraged even when he does the job right. Even though he has five or even ten positive qualities, he feels disheartened to explore them. We should therefore concentrate on explaining to him that he has this one wrong quality whereas the remaining nine good ones would always have our encouragement. When dealing with such a case, we should bring about a balance between the nine positive and one negative, and prevent him from falling. Our experience should create an impression on him. It is futile to hammer into his mind that he must follow you since you are speaking from your own experience. That would be meaningless. He should have the urge to learn from you. If encouragement is not given in the right way, then he is likely to go astray; therefore we should maintain a balance. Dadashri’s science teaches us to be impartial, and to judge impartially. Once you learn this, then there will be a balance. You will be able to encourage the right attributes and will be able to remain silent toward wrong doing or you will be able to explain to a person why he should refrain from doing wrong, and help him do the right thing! You will have a comprehensive explanation, so that the other person will be convinced to accept your point of view and let go of his wrong opinion, and therefore, the right opinion will set in.