So you see, originally he was a very honest child; he wanted to give
back the things that he borrowed. He was even better than Meng Tzu,
the Chinese saint; he was better! In childhood, he could already discriminate
between good and bad, and Meng Tzu could not. Meng Tzu just imitated
everything, but this child knew what was good and what was bad. Meng
Tzu just had a good mother, that's all, who turned a bad child into
a good saint.
Therefore,
our company is very, very important. In Vietnam we say we have to
pick our friends, meaning we have to be careful in choosing friends.
But how can we choose our family members? That's very unfortunate.
Therefore, it takes a strong will to get out of the influence of the
family. And if we don't happen to stumble into some saintly person,
we will never know anything better. You can see from the examples
of these two children: One was an ignorant, bad, stupid child who
turned into a brilliant saint, and one was a very honest, pure child
who turned into a vicious, deadly criminal. Therefore, sometimes if
we want to judge a person, we also have to know their background.
And we cannot know that unless we are enlightened.
That's
why in the Bible it says don't judge people so you won't be judged.
But when you are enlightened, you don't want to judge anyone. You
only want to help. That's the good part about enlightenment. If we
want to have good judgment we must be enlightened, and when we are
enlightened we don't have any judgment. We look at everyone as erring
children, lacking in good information, and we try to provide it. And
that is the very good part of enlightenment, if there is nothing else.
That's
why in India people tell you that we should always seek the company
of the saints. That's because in India, saints are very precious;
everyone runs after them. In the West or in other countries, people
run after money, but in India they run after saints. They hunt for
the saints until all the saints are scared. Sometimes they have to
run away. They do; they hide! They're scared of people. 
