Day 34

Shun bad company. There is a saying by someone, “If you want to Know a person, know him through the company he keeps or the books he reads.” Shun bad company. What is bad company? The company which solidifies your negativity is bad company. 

You have some problem, you have a complaint, you go and you talk to someone and they make your beliefs more strong in that negativity that is bad company. And you go to someone else with the same problem, same thought, same negativity. 

And they will just make you feel lighter and when you walk away from them you feel that the problem is not as big as you thought it was before. That is the right company. Don't think people who agree with your grievances, with your problems, are your friends. They are not. 

Those people who make your negative feelings and your frustrations grow more and more in you may appear to be friends, but they are your enemies. They are bad company. Right company, good company, is that which makes you feel the problem is nothing. 

“It is solvable, it is simple, don’t worry .” They pump enthusiasm in you. Haven't you had this experience? Many people you talk to confirm your negativity while there are others who simply dissipate your negativity. Shun bad company if you want to grow in love, because bad company provokes ambition. 

Why should we get rid of bad company? Why should we not keep bad company? It says it brings lust or ambition in you, feverishness in you. “That person has a Rolls Royce, I, too, should have one. That person has this, I, too, should have that.” And then behind ambition comes anger. Actually, if you look into it, it is your own mind which is either your friend or your enemy. 

The negative tendency in your mind is your own enemy. Don't think it is in the other person. You can turn around the other person’s mind too. If the other’s mind is negative, you can break the ice there, you need the skill to do that. 

Bad company brings ambition, desire, frustration, anger and delusion. You build a whole castle in your mind about negativity - how things are, how people are, how the whole world is. Haven't you had this experience before in your life? 

You thought such and such a person is hopeless and you made a whole concept about him in your mind just by listening to someone else and then suddenly you found out that all your opinions and ideas about the person were false. 

They fell apart. Your opinions prove to be wrong. How many times in your life have your own opinions failed you? Yet we do not learn from our own past.