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THE WAY OF LIFE
with mother ... familiarity with father ... familiarity with the other members of the family....familiarity with friends ... familiarity with the society ... familiarity with the citizens., thus the sphere of familiarity always keeps expanding.
IT IS NECESSARY TO LIMIT THE SPHERE OF FAMILIARITY
The people with whom a man develops familiarity exercise a deep influence upon his personality. "Familiarity plays a significant role in the formation of our character and our personality. The familiarity that man develops with others from the time of his birth upto the time of his becoming thoughtful and sensible depends on fortune. That is, until he can develop familiarity with others after careful thinking of the propriety of being familiar with such people, the familiarity he develops with others will depend on chance or fortune. Before he becomes thoughtful, he will not have the power to distinguish between good people and bad people. Therefore, the tradition of our Indian culture is that the responsibility of guiding ignorant children depends upon their parents. Parents have to decide with what kind of people their children should develop familiarity and with what kind, they should not. Parents and guardians must have the objective of making their children and wards cultured men and women. But this attitude can be present only in those parents and guardians who are themselves cultured and who have a partiality for culture and noble ideals and who despise undesirable and ignoble principles; and who are themselves sensible and sagacious.
Familiarity with others keeps expanding and we have to develop familiarity with others in our lives. In our practical life, we have to develop familiarity with others, according to our necessity but, of course, we have to use our intelligence in deciding with what kind of people, we should develop familiarity and with what kind of people we should not.
Now, the author of the great Grantha the Acharyashri exhorts us not to develop excessive intimacy with others. He
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