Question: How can we be tolerant of the people around us when we see they are not so perfect?

Sri Chinmoy: If you want to be very just, impartial, simply look at one part of your body. You have two eyes, but for some reason you like your right eye more. Perhaps your right eye has better vision than your left eye. So what do you do? You immediately establish your oneness with the left eye as well. Again, your left arm is weaker than your right arm. But you do not chop it off for that reason! It is also yours, just as your right arm is yours. You have identified yourself with the weaker parts as well as the stronger parts of your body.

When you see that somebody is not perfect, your heart has to come forward and say that the person who is imperfect is also part and parcel of your life. Always we have to be very, very wise. Our sisters and brothers who are weaker can be made stronger by our concern, compassion and sympathy. Otherwise, if we disregard the weaker ones, we will not be in the picture either! Who is good, who is bad? Just because I can say that one person is imperfect, I cannot say that I am perfect. Why should God tolerate me if I cannot tolerate others?