How to identify the right company for oneself?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: How do we know, with whom to stay and whom not to stay?

Acharya Prashant: Whosoever makes you feel free, must be there in your life. Whosoever brings freedom, must surely be in your life and whosoever creates bondages upon you, bondages of any kind either implicit or explicit, must not be welcomed at all.

Even to see whether what you are doing is in awareness or lack of awareness, you require freedom. Bondage cannot be a route to freedom, and remember this cannot be said for an 8-year-old. An 8-year-old sometimes requires to be told, to be lead but none of you is 8 years old. At your age, bondages have no place in life, at your age, the biggest disservice that can be done to you is to impose a particular code upon you. The only way you can be helped today is by setting yourself free, and whosoever does not set you free is not your friend but your enemy.

That enemy might be a hidden enemy, it may contain a name of a beautiful relationship, or it may even appear to be sacred but it is an enemy nevertheless. Remember, nobody accepts bondage if he/she knows that it is bondage. Nobody would accept being chained if he knows that these are chains.