The saying, “a person is known by the company they keep”, highlights a deep truth. We are social beings, and the people around us shape our thoughts, habits, and values quietly but powerfully. Good company can guide us towards growth and a purposeful life, while bad company can slowly pull us away from our potential and send us into a downward spiral of self-destruction.
This happens because we tend to imitate the people with whom we spend our time. If our friends value discipline, honesty, learning, and kindness, these qualities become easier to develop. On the other hand, if laziness, dishonesty, or harmful behaviour are the norm with our peer group, these traits can spread just as easily.
When we are faced with confusion or temptation, the advice and example of companions is often crucial. Good friends help us make wiser choices while bad company can lead us into actions we may regret later.
We have all heard or read about famous persons with talent and promise who drifted into substance abuse or crime after falling in with the wrong peer group. It starts with small compromises encouraged by “friends”, eventually leading to broken education, careers, and families.
Good company acts like fertile soil — it allows character, discipline, and purpose to grow. Bad company, on the other hand, is like a slow poison: it weakens judgment and erodes values over time, leading to lasting harm. Choosing good company is, therefore, not a social preference — it is a decision that can impact our life in a major way.
In Eastern cultures, particular value is given to the company of elders. Elders have lived through success, failure, loss, responsibility, and change. Their advice is grounded in real consequences, not theory, and learning from their experiences allows younger people to avoid mistakes without paying the full price themselves. In India, ‘satsang’, or company of the wise, is considered an important part of personal and spiritual growth. Elders and teachers are respected as carriers of wisdom accumulated over generations.
Younger peers often focus on immediate rewards such as status, pleasure, or approval. Elders tend to have a long-term perspective, and focus on health, family, values, and legacy. This broader view encourages us to develop patience, discipline, and foresight.
Elders are also less likely to be impulsive or reactive and more likely to respond calmly. Spending time with them helps us develop maturity and self-control. Not only that, elders act as a protective shield against unhealthy pressures. Peers can sometimes push us toward unhealthy competition or risky behaviour in order to fit in with the peer group. Elders rarely pressure others to impress them; instead, they encourage sincerity and personal growth.
This is not to suggest that the company of one’s peers is all bad. Young peers provide companionship, freshness, creativity, and new perspectives. However, without the grounding influence of elders, peer groups can drift toward impulsiveness or shallow values. Elders act as anchors, keeping growth aligned with wisdom rather than impulse.
The ultimate company, however, which uplifts and transforms the soul, is the company of God. It is not company in the physical sense. But when we spend time with God, by remembering Him and His virtues, we begin to be coloured by His ‘company’. When the soul dwells on and experiences the Supreme Father’s unconditional love, compassion, purity, and peace, the resulting sense of fulfilment inspires it to share the same with others. Regular companionship of God makes the soul more and more like Him. That is why individuals who are known to be close to God become beacons of His love, kindling in their fellow souls faith in goodness and faith in the Supreme Source of all that is good in humans.
B.K. Sheilu is a Rajyoga teacher at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Mount Abu, Rajasthan
