Loose Talk and Wrong Company

Swami Sivananda, "I am dead against gossip, giggling and guffaw.I ask my students to avoid loose talk..." (pg. 102, Autobiography of Swami Sivananda)

Swami Sivananda, "Shun those who obstruct you..." (pg. 22, Maha Yoga) 

Swami Sivananda, "It is very easy to deal with the rank materialist, the man of openly vicious nature, the human brute; his unrighteousness is patent and it is easy to convince people of the need to keep away from him. Such vicious people are not as many as those who are extremely vicious at heart, whose conscience is enshrouded in ignorance, and through whose veins flows the deadly venom of selfishness, greed, lust, anger and egoism, but who knavishly presume an authority to teach people, to guide people along 'the path of righteousness.' Often, the devil quotes scriptures; and it is to the common man to detect the tiger masquerading in the garb of a cow, before it is too late to save himself. It is by the rescue of Dharma from the clutches of these misleaders of mankind that the Lord has truly fulfilled the self-imposed task of restoration of Dharma. Mercilessly He exposes these hypocrites by defining Jnana in terms of ethics. 

He has given a completely revolutionary definition of Jnana: 'Humility, unpretentiousness, non-injury, forgiveness, uprightness, service of the teacher, purity, steadfastness, self-control, indifference to the objects of the senses, absence of egoism, perception of or reflection over the evil in birth, death, old age, sickness and pain, non-attachment, non-identification of Self with son, wife, home and the rest, constant even-mindedness on the attainment of the desirable and the undesirable, unswerving devotion unto Me by the Yoga of non-separation, resort to solitary places, distaste for the society of men, constancy in Self-knowledge, perception of the end of true knowledge—this is declared to be Knowledge and what is opposite to it is ignorance.' (http://www.dlshq.org/religions/gospel_krishna.htm)

Swami Sivananda, "...avoid the company of all those who have no faith in God, and who deride God, your Guru and religion, from this very day." (pg. 78, Hindu Fasts & Festivals)