REAL FRIENDSHIP BEGINS WHEN A SPARK IS IGNITED IN THE HEARTS OF TWO PEOPLE
There could never be friendship on a total physical level. There could be an attraction that seems like a friendship. Most friendships, like love, are based upon needs. You need companionship; you need support; you need someone to share things with, and that is what is commonly known as friendship.
But to me, that is not real friendship, that is only the surface of what friendship could be; for real friendship, like love, should have no need. When there is no need for friendship, there is a total acceptance of a friend.
Where does friendship stem from? If friendship is based only on the mental level where two people think alike, that is good. There is a particular kind of mutualness in their ways of life, their likes, and their dislikes. That is true on the surface level. But real friendship begins when a spark is ignited in the hearts of two people. Like love, friendship has to grow; and when this spark is ignited in the hearts of two people, then friendship really begins, and even when two people think differently, they might agree to disagree – and yet that friendship, that deep love, is always there.
In true friendship, there are no expectations and no wants.
The first quality of friendship begins with accepting whoever that person is, and when one accepts someone, one has to take them totally. The greatest mistake people make in friendships is introducing the element of expectation. Whenever there is expectation from anyone – “I expect my friend to be this or that” – then friendship ceases, then friendship just becomes a kind of acquaintanceship. You are acquainted with a person, you expect. Then it becomes a kind of business, here you expect from your friends to send you a present or a card, and if that does not happen, perhaps, perhaps you might have never thought of me on my birthday!” Meanwhile, he could really be a true friend, and, because of circumstances, whatever happened, you may wish him well; the welling-up and the value of friendship remain constant. So, in friendship, there is no expectation whatsoever.
Then, with expectation, there is another quality a person develops: the ability to receive, to try to receive from a friend. You want, be it in the form of love, or support, or anything of that nature. And that, too, does not constitute true friendship if you always want to be and expect to receive.
REAL FRIENDSHIP – GIVING OF ONESELF FOR THE SAKE OF GIVING
Real friendship lies in giving, not because they are a friend, but for the sake of giving. When this quality of giving for the sake of giving develops in a person, it enhances the friendship without effort, for you are giving. Giving does not only mean giving a present or something mundane or monetary. It is giving of oneself; it is giving of one’s entirety. The most significant relationship between a man and wife, for example, is based on that kind of friendship. To be married is nothing but a friendship stabilised, and two people live together as friends in the same ship in this ocean of life.
When the idea of giving is there, what do you give? As I said, giving has nothing to do with mundane things. But you give the core of your personality to the friend, and that core constitutes your every emotion, every feeling, good and bad. And yet there might be times in friendship where the friendship is heartfelt and truthful, but you might feel some anger for something which the friend has done, not to you, but some other act in his life, and you feel a bit angry. And giving that anger to your friend is also giving. It is not only a matter of giving love, but also of providing anger, for then you are a true friend. If I do not point out the faults in you to better yourself, not to degrade the friend, but for the betterment of the friend, then I am doing a disservice to my friend. In giving this service to a friend, a sacrifice is needed. You sacrifice the feelings that you have in you and put them at his feet. In other words, you are sacrificing your personality. All that composes you, you are sacrificing it at the friend’s feet, and this could be love and anger and everything that is connected to that, every emotion, every kind of emotion, positive or negative. You are sacrificing that at your friend’s feet.
FRIENDSHIP IMPLIES A KIND OF ACCEPTANCE OF WHAT THE FRIEND IS
The friend must be worthy too, able to accept the sacrifice, for that sacrifice is not a martyrdom but an offering. You are offering yourself entirely to a friend. To be able to provide oneself to a friend, trust is needed. If you ask the question, “Does that friend inspire trust in me?” That is the wrong question, because if the friend inspires trust in you, that trust will only be superficial. You have to have trust without the friend engendering the trust. So, in that trustful way, you offer yourself to the friend as a sacrifice of yourself.
When we offer ourselves as a sacrifice in complete trust, then faith develops. Then you start having faith in the friend, and if you do, you do not see the friend’s flaws. You would begin to see only the goodness in the friend, and because of your faith, they will change. Your thought forces of love and devotion that have been engendered will overcome his weaknesses. I have always said that thought is a thing. It is powerful, and that very power, being so positive, will override all the negativity in the friend.
So, you are not going out to help the friend, but by having the qualities we mentioned, you are automatically helping, and that is the real help one can give anyone. “I want to help someone; I want to help Gururaj.” No, what you are doing is helping your ego. You are not helping me; you are bolstering your ego. It has to be so spontaneous in that love and that faith and trust and the sacrifice, then that constitutes real help; it constitutes real giving of oneself to a friend.
How a friend reacts to you is his business; you should not be disappointed by a friend’s wrongdoing. You should not be elated by the proper action of a friend. A young man was walking on the road, and he met someone who swore at him. He said a nasty word, so this boy went to his father and complained, “John said a nasty word.” So, the father asked him, “Do you know him?” “Yes.” “Is he a friend of yours?” “Yes.” “Well then, that is good, because if he did not know you and he was not a friend of yours, he would not have said the nasty word.” So, friendship implies all this, and all this boils down to a kind of acceptance of what one is, not what one expects in the friend, but just what the friend is.
TRUE FRIENDSHIP IS FINDING DIVINITY IN THE FRIEND
If we have the sense of self-sacrifice and the love and the acceptance of what he is, and the trust and the faith, then what do we see in the friend? We see none else but Divinity in the friend. So true friendship is to find Divinity in the friend, and as you find Divinity in the friend, you will find a subtle transformation taking place in the friend as well. You will find him being uplifted, and he will not know why. He will only respond by loving you more, and he will not understand why. Meanwhile, you are creating that love in his heart for you, because you have started loving the friend. And that is true friendship.
So, the finality is that you do not have a friendship anymore. Your mind and body are not the totality of the friendship, but that which is deep within you merges with that which is deep within the friend, and that is friendship. That is friendship. The body perishes, the mind might think wrongly, but if it is established in Self, when the deeper qualities are awakened, then that is true friendship, and this benefits you immensely. This is also a way to God, where you have a friend as an object that can draw out in you all the positive qualities we have talked about, so you are evolving. And as you become, you extend a hand to help a friend cross the hurdles of life, if the word ‘help’ could be used. And as you sail in this boat of life with your friend, you will find that he will be using his oar exactly the way you are using it. A rhythm develops, and that rhythm is friendship. Where two people act in unison, where two people act in harmony, they are friends.
YOUR FRIEND CAN BE A CONCRETE OBJECT THAT LEADS YOU TO THE ABSTRACT DIVINITY
There is an old saying, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” That saying is a fallacy. It has surface values: if I am not feeling well and I am in need, the friend comes along and nurses me, looks after me. He has fulfilled a specific need. But that is not the basis of friendship; that is an outcome of friendship. Friendship is something which is just naturally done, because if it is based upon need, then you are encouraging the friend to inflate his ego: “Ah, I went to look after Mary, and she is so well. And you know, Joan, I washed all her dresses, and I cooked for her…” All that. That is not friendship; that is just boosting the ego. She just talks about it to her other so-called friends and says, “Ah, I looked after Mary.” No, no. The truest deeds done in friendship are never known, or never even thought about, and never even whispered even to oneself. Your left hand does not know what your right hand is doing. Because if you find the recognition, or if you ponder over what you have done for a friend, then you have done nothing at all. It is doing for the sake of doing.
We talk of karma-yoga, work for the sake of work, offering for the sake of offering. Start at home with your friend, with the one who is nearest to you, and you act and not worry about what they react. Goodwill always rebounds in goodness, and a bad action will always rebound in a bad action. So, practicing true friendship is practicing karma yoga, and it becomes easier when we start with those whom we are fond of. We can be fond of people without really loving them. We might like something and really not love something.
Perhaps at first, one has to do these things consciously and with effort until they become totally spontaneous, and in friendship, all actions are performed unconsciously. You do not realize what it is you are doing. Then there is a kind of Divine impulsiveness. You pass a street, and you just automatically pick a flower – not from someone’s garden, you will be pinching them – you like a flower for a friend as an offering. You are not even conscious that you have picked the flower. You are not thinking, “I am taking this flower to my friend to make my friend happy,” you are not even thinking that. There is no thought involved; you are just doing it here and now. You see the difference between the conscious act and the spontaneous act? You just do that, you just do; you just blossom as the flower blossoms. You just give off the fragrance to the friend as the flower does, without being conscious of it. That constitutes love. So, your friend can be a concrete object that could lead you to the abstract, the abstract God. So here in the friend, you see the personified Divinity that leads you to the abstract, total Divinity.
Yet, man knows that he cannot exist without friendship, and yet he abuses friendship because, in the friendship, Self is involved instead of selflessness. I do an act for a friend, then I am thinking, “Oh, what a wonderful thing I have done. I hope he appreciates it.” That is a waste of time, it is a waste of time. I hope he appreciates it – why should I hope he understands it, or if he does not enjoy it? I have done what I have to do. A spontaneous act, a spontaneous feeling, has welled up within me, and I am doing it. Because as soon as we bring in the thought of what the action is going to bring, then immediately the actual value of friendship is lost, but just an exhibition of one’s own personal ego. There is no friendship.
THE MERGENCE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE IS THE SAME AS THE MERGENCE OF MAN WITH GOD
You find other sayings like, “I love my friend so much I will give my life for that friend.” Why? Why? What is the motivation behind it? That is important. Is the life given for self-aggrandizement so that the world will say, “Ah, what a friend he was. He killed himself for his friend, to save his friend’s life?” Most of the martyrs we find throughout history were motivated by a desire for martyrdom; except for a very few, it was not a true sacrifice. So, what motivates you to give your life for your friend? Is it going to help the friend? Ask that, and am I doing it selflessly, or am I tired of life? Many times, in war, soldiers run to the forefront. It is madness; they are tired of life. I am talking of 99% of the cases; you might find one genuine one – they run to the forefront, and if they get saved by some chance, then they get the V.C. – Victoria Cross – for the brave act. But was it really a heroic act, or was it running away from life that they are tired of and that they cannot stand up to their responsibilities? Likewise, the same in friendship: there has to be a reasonable amount of reasoning, and then one goes beyond reasoning to the inner levels of oneself.
That is why you will find a greater depth of friendship in meditators, because every action stems not from the surface level only but from a far deeper level, a subtler level, which is a purer level. And that is why when they say “Gururaj, father and friend” — what is father? What does “father” really mean? “Father” means a protector, and “friend” means “the one that loves me selflessly” — no motivation whatsoever. And to qualify that, if we could call it a motivation, would be to show the path to God. And that is a motiveless motive. A desireless desire. That is why the hell should I be joyful and experience Ananda, let me share it. The cup runneth over; why let it go down the drain? And if you are thirsty enough, have the whole cup. Why only that which runneth over? Have the entire cup; it is yours. That is a friend. Because I know I can replenish it. There is plenty from where it comes from: the eternal spring, undying, forever producing that life force, that water that gives life, the prana that gives life, the breath that gives life. That is friendship.
So, in true friendship, there is a mergence of my inner Self with your inner Self, and then I find that there was never a separation at all. The whole idea is to remove the concept of separation: that you are me and I am thee. That is true friendship. That mergence between two people is the same as the mergence of man with God. For here it is not the body or the mind; here it is the true spirit which is within. For the “herein” within you is the same “herein” within me. The little waves on the ocean dance and play their own separateness.
IF YOU CANNOT BE A FRIEND OF GOD, BE A FRIEND OF MAN
Yet it is the same ocean. One ocean of life. That is friendship. And the recognition of this evolves a person to the journey’s end, which is actually just the beginning. For in reality, there is no beginning, and no end. There is just this oneness. That is friends: a. A beautiful word, beautiful word.
So, if you cannot be a friend of God, be a friend of man. For if you befriend man in the way I have told you about, you automatically befriend that which is known as God. You see how simple it is? Living life that way makes life joyous. For joy is only in the sharing.
And what do you share? What do you share? If you share your plate of food with me, I will be hungry again this evening. If you share the $50 you have with me, I will be broke again by the end of the week. But if you share your heart with me, that remains eternal. For the heart of man is infinity itself. It goes beyond feeling, beyond all emotion. That is the true heart. When we see pictures of Jesus with a bleeding heart, how beautiful they are; he is sharing his life essence with you, his totality.
Why do they not show a picture of his big toe bleeding, why his heart? That is the machine that keeps everything functioning, the heart. I know about it, yes, I do. So there, when it comes from there, so it is there. That is friendship – it is so easy, really. And then, when we cannot really reach these principles, at least we can do one thing – put your hand in the hand of the man of God, and then all these things develop in you, and you will enjoy your friendships more by doing that.
In their own way, every person is perfect.
So, two ways of doing it. One: By practicing karma yoga, you actively and deliberately develop that friendship. And if you cannot do that, then you just put your hand in the hand of the man of God, the man from Galilee. It is a lovely song; I love that song! “Put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.” By doing that, you are doing bhakti-yoga, devotion.
Do not seek perfection in a friend. Why should your friend be perfect? What right do we have to demand perfection from our friends? Am I ideal to demand that perfection? And if I see any imperfection, then it is only a reflection of my personal imperfection.
So, the other way is just to surrender to a power, to a force, which your heart and mind tell you to be perfect. Because if you cannot find that in man, start with God; and that automatically will make you see the perfections in man and not the imperfections. No one is really imperfect. It is just our minds that tell us that one is imperfect. No one is perfect. How can the creation of Divinity be imperfect? Why should that which is perfect create something imperfect? It is an impossibility. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and it is I who sees the imperfections in you because I have my mind clouded up with so-called imperfections. I do not consider myself perfect. And once that realization dawns, I will see that I am perfect! “Man, know thyself.” When I know that, then I will see no imperfection in anyone. And that is true friendship; then you would cease to see any imperfection in your friend. You start with one, and then you would see no imperfection in the multitudes: they are perfect in their own way. In their own way, every person is perfect.
ALL VARIETIES ARE BUT THE EXPRESSIONS OF DIVINE GLORY
You have a large bubble, a medium-sized bubble, and a small bubble on the ocean of life. Is the small bubble imperfect, or is the bigger bubble more perfect? No, it is not so. The most significant imperfection, if we would like to use that word, is to concern ourselves or worry ourselves about imperfections. You see the concern we have about imperfections that can be regarded as imperfections, and that imperfection is illusory. It is an illusion we create in our minds: this is perfect, and that is imperfect. Why should these leaves be less perfect than that flower? They are perfect in their own right. The apple is just as perfect as an apple, and the orange would be as perfect as an orange. And it requires this variety, it needs this diversity in this world, in this universe, to understand that there is a unity underlying all the diversities of life. All the varieties are but the expressions of Divine glory. Just the expressions.
When we find our friend to be an expression of that Divinity, then the thought of imperfection ceases, and by that ceasing, you are helping yourself by getting rid of the illusion of imperfection.
In a society, specific disciplines are necessary
A man performs a particular act. Who are we to judge that a man has done a wrong act? That might be the very act that will lead him on his path of evolution. Who are we to judge? How do we know? Who knows? Very few people in this world, one or two, three perhaps, would see the totality of that person, how his psyche functions, what samskaras are in his subtle body, how much of that pure spirit is shining forth. And how his mind, through all those samskaras, is patterned for him to perform a specific act. How can we judge that the man is doing a wrong act? He is acting rightly in accordance with his needs. That is the spiritual point of view. But then, to run society, there has to be a specific stability. So, who are we to really judge? If you do not know yourself, how can you tell someone else and form judgments; for that judgment is nothing but a machination of your own mind, and your mind at that level functions in illusion. So, judge ye not that ye be judged, as the Bible would say.
So, the man has performed the act, and yet in society, we do need specific disciplines. We do need them; otherwise, the world would be in a chaotic mess. That is why we have magistrates and judges and things like that, and they function at the level of sociology to preserve a particular kind of stability in this world, which is necessary, or else people, as they are today, might run wild and upset the balance that society needs. As a matter of fact, there are more insane people outside an asylum than in an asylum. That is very true. So, these disciplines are necessary.
TRUE FRIENDSHIP TO MAN IS BUT ANOTHER WAY OF LEADING ONE TO TRUE FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD
But I speak from the spiritual level, that not being able to see imperfection is to be able to love; and that is how we practice what is said in the scriptures, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” But know thyself, and automatically you will find “thyself” in the Self of the other person, and love occurs. Love is a happening. Love is a celebration, for all else is celebrating all the time: the flower is celebrating, the tree is celebrating, the grass is celebrating; everything is celebrating, celebrating the glory of its own creation, of its own manifestation. That is the celebration that stems from the Manifestor. So, what is the Manifestor doing? He is celebrating, too. You see how joyful it is? And celebration is always cheerful. That is joy. And that is how it works. That is friendship; that is how you reach the finest levels of friendship; that is how you get God; that is how you reach Divinity. For let me be a friend of God, and if I still do not understand that too well, let me be a friend of man, whom I know. True friendship with man is but another way of leading one to true friendship with God. What better friend do you want? It is all there; it is all there. And if it is not all there, it is here.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1979 – 13
