Topic:
The Company You Keep
The Company You Keep
How extremely important it is to be aware of the company you keep. Each person carries an aura and that aura comes from the energy of the chakras. Depending on the level of the consciousness of the person, depending on the quality of thoughts and emotions, so is the quality of the aura or the auric field of energy.
I am aware of each person I come in contact with; what kind of energy they carry and how that energy influences me. If someone is very angry and they come towards me, I can feel their anger inside of me; it is because we share the consciousness and spiritual field of being. The energy of the person, if it is anger, begins to come inside of me because we have that connection. And I can feel the anger coming from inside of me and I can feel the irritation it brings from inside of me. When someone comes with anger, I can feel their anger and it is tempting in the normal human sense to want to respond in anger. When someone comes to me angry, the normal feeling is to respond to them in anger because I am feeling that anger inside of my consciousness. But, because I know better and because I am detached from the whole experience and I can observe what is happening, I decide not to respond in anger and not to respond in a like manner.
Can you image someone who is not in command of themselves, someone who is not able to observe and hold back but someone who identifies and responds, what will happen? Can you image that? If you observe this carefully, you will see why when someone comes with anger towards you, you tend to respond in the same way.
Recently when I was in New York there was a man driving an SUV out of a parking spot. Because he was moving too slowly for the lady behind him who wanted to take his space she begins to argue with him, why is he taking so long and then he began arguing with her and he tells her, ‘I am not going to move from here,’ so he stopped all the cars from moving! But we were able to go through because we were on the other side. I looked at them and saw how the tempers were flaring and how worked up they were. I did not know what happened after but I looked at the situation and how they affected each other.
If you look in your own life and see how you respond in anger just because someone comes to you in anger, if you are not careful, you see how people can influence you. We say you give your power away. The man would have given his power away to the lady behind him, and she would have given her power to the man in front of her. They were both out of control.
When we keep the company of people, we begin to absorb their energy and we begin to become like them. Even if you don’t use swear words and start associating with someone who uses swear words, before you know it, the swear words would start playing in your mind and even if you were not comfortable with them, you would begin to hear them in your mind and suddenly you will become a little comfortable with them and before you know it, you are saying it too. We become like the people we associate with even if initially we did not like it.
How important it is to select the company you keep or to look carefully and see how you are influenced by the people around you. At work if you have a certain kind of boss who keeps telling you how stupid or inefficient you are and you begin to believe that, then your whole mindset is changed just because of what the person tells you, which may not necessarily be true. When you associate with someone who is very “picky” or irritable, you tend to become the same way.
Can you imagine in your household? I consider your household to be your sacred space. After your day of activities you come home into your sacred space and if your sacred space is not together or out of harmony can you imagine what your energies would be like? If your bed is a place where you worry all the time, can you imagine when you go to your bed what you are going to receive? The whole environment where we are begins to take up the energy that we give out. Can you imagine an entire family always arguing and fighting with each other and being in conflict? Can you imagine the energy of that household or workplace?
It is extremely important to be able to transform your energy, the energy of the place where you are and to associate with those who can lift you. If you are unable to find that, try to become what you would like to be and influence the people around you.
I constantly have to relate to all kinds of people but I would not let their energies influence me. I will relate to them, I will feel their energies coming towards me, but I would not accept it to the extent that I am going to react in a like manner. I love to be in the presence of those who are more spiritual. When people come to me to learn meditation, I am always happy when the person is spiritual because I become energised by the meditation.
When I come to satsang and all of you are in a wonderful state and you are chanting and meditating with me, you energise me. And when you come to satsang tired and are influenced by the energy, very quickly you pick up the energy and when you pick up, the whole group transforms. The group is meant to nourish those who are tired or challenged. When you come into the group, try to transform your energies very quickly and you will be amazed at what happens in the collective energy of the group.
It is extremely important to associate with those whose energies are higher. If you cannot find such a person, then work at transforming your own energies from inside by your chanting, meditation, reading and move away from energy fields that are overwhelming for you and strengthen yourself. Always be aware of how you are being influenced by those around you. Even when they seem not to be influencing you, they may still influence you. Even if people are quiet, whatever their presence carries also influences you. Someone may be quiet but fearful and that influences the space. Some persons may be quiet but very negative; they influence the space.
Always be aware and move away from limiting spaces if you cannot change it. Gravitate to those spaces that are more empowering. That is what we try to do at our Centre; we try to create a space that is empowering. When you walk in this hall, our hope is that you will be energised and lifted by the hall. I hope that in your houses you will have the same; if you cannot have it in your whole house, in one special room. Try to create that kind of energy within you and around you. We do that in a very natural and effortless way by associating with people who have a higher energy level or who have greater spiritual energy. That is what we are doing now.
