Acharya Prashant responds to a question about whether hope can be right or wrong. He begins by stating that hope is a form of action (karma), a subtle mental action. He advises that instead of judging the action or the hope itself, one must look at the doer (karta), the center from which the hope arises. An action is neither good nor bad in itself; its quality depends on the doer. You are still asking if this action is good or bad, but the teaching is to see the doer, not the action. To illustrate this, he explains that two people can have the same hope, but their underlying motives can be vastly different. For example, two individuals might hope for a person's health to improve. One might hope for this so they can recover a debt, while the other's hope might stem from a place of love. Similarly, one person might hope for a promotion to do better work, while another might want it for more opportunities to take bribes. The hope is the same, but the doer is different. Therefore, any hope, no matter how good it appears, can originate from a corrupt center, the ego. Acharya Prashant clarifies that there is one exception: the hope for liberation (mukti). This is the only hope that cannot arise from a wrong center. All other worldly hopes are suspect. He uses several analogies, including the story of the crocodile and the monkey from the Panchatantra, to show how friendship can be a pretense for selfish motives. He also references the story of Shurpanakha from the Ramayana, who approached Ram and Lakshman with a proposal of love, but her underlying intentions were different, leading to a violent confrontation. He quotes Kabir Saheb, who said, "Hope only for the Guru/Truth; all other hopes lead to despair." He concludes by stating that goodness has always been a means to hide the truth, and where there is an excess of apparent goodness, the truth is likely to be scarce.