In plain words
What good fortune this is!’ So thinking, they would enjoy Ānanda in the fast. One day, when food was served with the five delicacies and sweet rice and every kind of dish: ‘Today God Himself has sent it, bidding me give up this fast and eat well, my child.’ So they would be content with this and with that, with both. Sinking down when there is no food and no strength, swelling up when every strength and ability has come: they held both of these to be a danger. That is why they said, ‘Samatvaṃ yogamucyate.’ The maharṣis of old taught us such samatva. We must experience samatva. We must give samatva to the world. We must make it grow. This is the sign of tṛpti. One who has such tṛpti becomes fit to enjoy God’s presence and His treasure.
Now the fourth is satsaṅga. This satsaṅga is most necessary for the young too today. We make friends with people of bad habits and bad conduct. That alone is why both, in turn, become bad. We must keep this bad company away, even if it costs us money. We must win satsaṅga over, even by giving everything. Here is a fine example of this. Travelling through a dense forest on a dark night, if we too go along with the help of one who carries a lantern, we can easily see the way. But if both travel without a lamp, both get stuck. If we travel along with one who has a light, we too reach the goal safely. In the same way, if we join one who has good qualities, good ways, right conduct and good company, we reach a higher level. Even bad people gain in value when they join the good. A good man who joins the bad loses his value. A small example. There are ten litres of milk. They value it at four rupees a litre. So forty rupees come to him. There is one litre of water. For one litre of water they will not give even a naya paisa. In a desert, perhaps, they might buy it, but ordinarily they give no value to a litre of water. But when a litre of water joins ten litres of milk, it becomes eleven litres of milk and they give it value. There they do not call it water. They call it eleven litres of milk. So when you mix something good and valuable into this valueless water, the water too gains value. Suppose there are ten litres of water. There is 1 litre of milk. They give four rupees for this one litre of milk. But when it joins these ten litres of water, it loses its value. They call it water, not milk. In the same way, if one bad boy joins ten good boys, he becomes good, the eleventh good boy.