Determining Association

Commentary on the Dhammapada–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Over and over in the teachings of Buddha we find that he is giving us only that which can be applied in our daily lives in order to fit ourselves for freedom from all that bind us. Never does he waste a single moment of our time with metaphysics that, by their abstract nature, have no practical use. Again and again we see from his words that Dharma is a matter of Here And Now. Anything outside the Here and Now is meaningless.

Paramhansa Nityananda said: “When a man takes birth, he is not born with a book in his hand but he is born with a brain.”1 But in modern India it certainly seems like the popular teachers were born with a book instead of a brain–a book of platitudes and truisms that someone once rightly labeled “fortune cookie omniscience.” In the West we are raised in such abysmal ignorance that when we first hear the fortune cookie platitudes we are overwhelmed with their wisdom. We are like a starving person to whom junk food tastes like heavenly food. The sad thing about many Western seekers is that they never come to see the flimsy character of the platitudes but stick with them and their robotic dispensers for all their life.

Fortunately for me, my initial contact with Sanatana Dharma was the unparalleled translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Prabhavananda.2 There is not a single syllable in the spiritual teaching of the Gita that is not essential. The Gita was a door into a whole new world.

“Company is greater than will power.”
–Yogananda

My next contact moved me forward into that new world and told me what I needed to acclimatize and expand into it. That contact was Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi and his other writings that are worthy of a lifetime of study and analysis. His commentary on the Bhagavad Gita presents the Sankhya philosophy in an unequaled manner, and his commentary on the Christian Gospels is the prime source for the real teachings of Jesus. No matter how many excellent books I have read over the intervening years, I always find myself going back to Yogananda to find the first, middle, and last words on spiritual life. Over and over he illuminates practical aspects of both inner and outer life that other teachers never even mention.

One of the first “aphorisms” of Yogananda that I learned deeply affected me. It was: “Company is greater than will power.” I took it seriously and applied it seriously in my life. It still comes to mind in many instances. So it naturally came to mind when I read the seventy-eighth verse of the Dhammapada:

Companions good and bad

“Don’t cultivate the company of bad companions. Don’t cultivate depraved men. Cultivate companions of good character. Cultivate superior men.”3

Here are three other translations that bring out the shades of meaning:

“Do not keep company with evildoing friends nor with people who are base; associate with the good, associate with the best of men.” (Harischandra Kaviratna)

“Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.” (Max Muller)

“Don’t associate with bad friends. Don’t associate with the low. Associate with admirable friends. Associate with the best.” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Buddha, as we would expect, is not in the least afraid of being thought a snob or a self-righteous prig. The only people who would accuse him of that on the basis of this words are the very people he tells us to avoid!

Bad companions

What makes someone a “bad” companion? Obviously evil-doers are bad companions, but we have to define evil. There are a lot of evils that never come to mind as outright evils, but for the sadhaka they can be deadly. Laziness, ignorance, lack of interest in higher life, material-mindedness, triviality, mundane-mindedness, arrogance, selfishness, egotism, lack of spiritual motivation–all these are evils for the seeker of enlightenment, especially since we rarely consider them as such. So people who have these traits are bad companions, for these things are contagious. That is why company is greater than will power.

Wagner wrote a symbolic music-drama called Parsifal. One of the major characters is a woman named Kundry. She divides her time between association with the holy Knights of the Grail and the vile Klingsor, a renegade Grail knight that has become a sorcerer. When she is with the Grail knights, Kundry behaves in a positive manner, doing good, but when she is with Klingsor she behaves in a negative, destructive manner. Many people are like Kundry, being influenced profoundly by the psychic character of whomever they are with. “Evil company corrupts good manners” it is true, but the worst of it is the condition of being so susceptible.

None of us should feel beyond the influence of others. Some people do not succumb immediately, but in time the citadel of their good state falls–often to never rise again in this lifetime. So this is matter of life and death.

The depraved

The fact that Buddha distinguishes between “bad” and “depraved” bears out my contention that the “bad” are those we never think of as bad, only spiritually out of the picture.

The depraved are those who do evil by choice–choice which rapidly escalates into addiction and eventual enslavement. These people can be more easily identified by anyone with good sense, but many of them operate under a veneer of benevolence and even goodness. This is why so many morally corrupt people at the present time are avidly engaging in “social action” and are exaggeratedly concerned about ecology and the pollution of the atmosphere. These are fake, “noble” moralities, requiring no moral strength whatsoever, that are only a cover for their depravity. These, too, must be avoided assiduously. (Good and worthy people are also sincerely involved in these concerns, and that is a different matter altogether.)

How to define a depraved person? First, anyone who is addicted to anything. Second, anyone who encourages addiction in others. It is incumbent on aspirants to higher awareness to develop the intuition to detect hidden depravity. Meditation is the way.

Those of good character

What makes a person of “good” character? Absence of the negative qualities we have discussed is necessary, but not enough. There must be the presence of positive, active elements. We can take our former list and reverse it. Good people–and I am speaking of “good” in the context of sadhana here–are diligent, disciplined, wise, oriented toward higher consciousness, spiritual-minded, substantial of character, possessing intelligent values, generous, unselfish, and valuing things of the spirit above all else.

“A friend is someone who inspires you to remember God.”
–Anandamayi Ma

Someone once asked Anandamayi Ma how to define “good” and “friend.” She replied that good was anything that enables someone to remember God; that a friend was someone who inspired you to remember God. Anything or anyone else was bad and an enemy. To grasp this truth and act upon it, bringing into our life the good and ruthlessly eliminating the bad–and doing it right now, not easing into it or putting it off to some vague or convenient future–is not just the beginning of wisdom, it is the guarantee of wisdom.

The superior

Superior people are those of conscious spiritual evolution who are constantly moving forward to higher and deeper realms of personal consciousness. They are dedicated wholeheartedly to this path of progress. Obviously they are yogis in the truest sense. A superior person not only elevates himself, but elevates those who come in contact with him. Vibrating to Truth, he awakens others to truth by his mere presence. Those who cannot be so uplifted are indifferent to him and he is indifferent to them.

Great saints and masters can produce spiritual consciousness in others simply by entering the room. I have known such myself, and have lived with them. However, only those who get busy and cultivate their own spiritual consciousness will benefit in a lasting manner. It always comes back to us.