The company of bad friends may be given up very easily; we may easily avoid worldly company and worldly talk. But the internal company of our former worldly friends and former impure thoughts is far more troublesome. What to do with them? They are the real danger in our spiritual life. First of all, energetically cut yourself away from all old associations and from the sources of the stimuli that tend to awaken your old impure ideas, thoughts, and desires; then, without accumulating fresh dirt, without making new worldly friends, try to clean all corners of your mind. Do away with the old accumulated dirt, that old dirt of ages. Without exercising great discrimination in the company we choose and in our talk and thought, this cleaning process becomes an impossibility, and without this cleaning process no spiritual path can be followed.
Even if we be very careful, we find that in the course of
the day we gather at least some dirt — this
may be in a very subtle form — some deep impressions that are harmful to
spiritual life. Never make
light of the company you are in, of the talks you are having. Stop all
gossiping, all idle thinking, all
random activity. All these are very harmful to the spiritual aspirant. Make it
a point to use the utmost discrimination in all this. Do not go and accumulate
new dirt through new worldly associations.
In the course of the day you should act in such a manner
that you would be able to undo what is
done. The whole account is to be altogether squared up so that the balance
becomes nil. There should neither be a positive balance nor any negative account.
There should be no craving for fresh worldly company and worldly talk. The
whole spiritual life lies in this fearless adjustment. Today, all of you have a
minus balance; and now, you must earn sufficiently to square up the account.
Only then may a new account be opened.