The Way to Know Community

Learn, yes, but not from just anyone. Learn from anyone and everyone, and you'll become just anyone. Be wary of those who thrust themselves upon you to teach. Finding a good teacher is hard enough; pushy people can at best become good cattle.
 
In Sherpur, I met a Hindu uncle who had worked at a church for thirty-one long years and maintained close relationships with many fathers. Yet never once did anyone tell him or his family: become a Christian. I was utterly amazed talking to that uncle.
 
My relationship with the Ramakrishna Mission is quite warm. The swamis show me special favor and affection. I've gathered most of my collection of gems—the Upanishads, the Gita, Vedanta—from there. Yet to this day, none of them has ever asked me to take initiation into Ramakrishna's teachings. I've observed that some gurus have initiated disciples who thoroughly annoy everyone, pressuring them to take initiation from their guru-dev. Someone who can harass a complete stranger like this from the very first meeting clearly doesn't fare well by any intellectual measure.
 
Judge a community not by looking at the guru, but by looking at the fellow disciples. A dog cannot roar; if it wants to learn to roar, it must mingle with lions. You'll find dogs on any street corner; lions aren't so easily found. What makes a bad school? One where bad students study. What the teacher is like doesn't matter much. Good teachers in bad schools mostly weep over hopeless cases.
 
Judge a community not by the guru's knowledge, but by the disciples' common sense. What will you gain by going to a community overrun with Mr. Beans except wasting your time? You don't need to become an initiated disciple to receive the guru's mantra; you can chant even as a spiritual follower. Some popular communities were founded by very high-level gurus, but by grabbing people off the streets to make them disciples like a Destiny company, the quality of those communities' disciples has become like kerosene!
 
I had a friend who was a PSD (Profit Share Distributor) for Destiny company. He wasn't bad at studies—he only failed his HSC twice before abandoning education altogether. Once he went to teach a Fulbright scholar professor from Chittagong University's accounting department the accounting for Destiny's Tree Plantation product. The professor smiled gently, offered his visitor tea, and went inside. The troubles of being a gentleman!
 
Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine" or "Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol"—even the Bengali translations are difficult to understand; would his followers ever mistakenly tell you to sink your teeth into such works? Without sufficient mental capacity, it's impossible to understand any creation of the sage Aurobindo or The Mother. Some people would spend their entire lives trying to understand the writings of Swami Nigamananda's chief disciple, Sri Anirvan. Sri Anirvan translated Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine" into Bengali as "Divya Jiban." Even after understanding that with great difficulty, I still don't fully understand "Savitri" today. The translations of the Vedas and Upanishads that Sri Anirvan completed in several volumes are invaluable treasures for the scholarly community. By mingling with their followers, you can challenge yourself, sharpen your understanding. You can lie at the feet of gurus like Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Nigamananda for ages upon ages, and no one will bother you by trying to recruit you or hassle you about anything else.
 
Of course, not just anyone goes to such places, and even if they do, they can't quite manage to benefit.
 
You can judge their worth by the length of the disciples' queue. "As many opinions, so many paths"—hardly anything more beautiful has been said in this world. But will someone who simply loves to quarrel and has virtually no real work appreciate such liberal philosophy? His mind holds: one opinion only, one path only—though he keeps this to himself for fear of getting beaten up.