Every spiritual seeker who is moving towards a path of consciousness from compulsiveness, might experience negative impact due to people with compulsive behaviors.
Sadhguru sheds light on the importance on being in the right sangha or company and shares few tips to cultivate a right company. You might have to live with different types of people who might be addicted to certain bad habits (like being a drug addict) or might exhibit certain compulsive behaviors. He believes that all these people definitely have a negative effect on your being and personality.
Why Keeping the Right Company Is Important?
Sadhguru asserts that even if you don’t do drugs or have any bad habits, people around you would still have an adverse effect on you. The effects are on a completely different level. Gautam Buddha has already described the ultimate truth and according to him, company or sangha you keep and the one who transmits the truth, are both equally important. Sadhguru believes that first priority of a person should be his sangha or the company. Then comes the one who transmits truth and finally comes the ultimate truth or dhamma.
Almost everybody is influenced by the company he or she keeps, both knowingly and unknowingly. Although, people might not actually realize up to what extent. It is not your family and friends who have an impact on who you are, but it is also your social exposure that plays an important role. Sadhguru feels that almost 90% of your personality is shaped by your social exposure alone. Choosing your company should not be regarded as discriminatory but must be considered discretionary. You should prioritize with whom you want to be and where you want to be. It is definitely not ideal to be with people who have compulsive behaviors or who are addicts, irrespective of whatever they are addicted to.
Shifting to Consciousness from Compulsiveness
You might put in all your efforts to move towards consciousness from compulsiveness but being around people who have compulsive behaviors, does not support you in anyway. According to Sadhguru, you have yet not reached a place where you can be among extremely compulsive people and still don’t get affected. You might essentially might not get addicted, but you will definitely be affected in some or the other way. Sadhguru reveals that it is quite a challenging task to maintain a spiritual place or ashram. He feels a spiritual place is just like an island or oasis in a vast ocean. It takes a lot to keep that spiritual place untouched by whatever is happening around. Sadhguru adds that people who visit his ashram carry a part of the place they belong and try to make it a part of the ashram. This makes it difficult to achieve the aim of the ashram.
Sadhguru says that wherever you live, the place must reflect your destination and not the compulsive behaviors or life of others. If you really succeed in this, you can come out untouched even if you have to walk through hell. Right now, you possibly get carried away. Don’t though overestimate yourself.
How to Cultivate a Right Company?
Moving away from bad influences and creating a right place are both crucial for your success and growth. This includes not only avoiding addicts but also people who exhibit certain extremely compulsive behaviors. You might have known several so-called “normal” families, where husband doesn’t drink, wife doesn’t shop too much, and children don’t do drugs. But are these really normal? Sadhguru doesn’t feel so. If you can change them, it is okay but if you can’t; the best thing is to step away from them. Your company does affect and shape your personality. To what extent, depends from individual to individual but it determines a lot of things.
Whichever company you keep in right now, might not affect you at this moment but what you are today is because of the company you kept earlier. If you had a bad company earlier, things would be entirely different for you now, but if you chose a good company, you would be doing great. Sadhguru concludes that you must either choose a right company for yourself or must decide to walk away from a bad one.
