True Friendship
While in this transient world, wading through joy and grief, man has sore need of someone of his kind with whom he can communicate his feelings, with whom he can share his discoveries and depressions, his moments of bliss and sorrow, to be by his side while trekking the hard road to truth and peace, encouraging and enthusing him toward the goal. Who is one’s true friend? Who is one’s false, fake friend?
Today’s friendship often falls short of the ideal. Friends who can confer real counsel, comfort, and consolation are precious gifts, rarely found today. A friendship knit by monetary bonds is disrupted as soon as you ask for the loan to be repaid. So, when you oblige your friend with a loan, the friendship too is broken at that very moment. How can friendship be cemented by words or by coins? Heart must understand heart, heart must be drawn to heart, if friendship must last. Friendship must bind two hearts and affect both beneficially, whatever may happen to either—loss or gain, pain or pleasure, good fortune or bad. The bond must survive all the blows of fate, and be unaffected by time, place and circumstance. Each must correct the other; for each knows that they come from sympathy and love. Each must be vigilant that the other does not slide from the ideal, cultivate habits that are deleterious, or hide thoughts and plans that are productive of evil. The honor of each is in the safe keeping of the other. Each trusts the other and places reliance on the other’s watchful love.
Only those deserve the name “friends”—who help in uplifting life, cleansing ideals, elevating emotions and strengthening resolves. Those who drag you into pomp, pedantry, paltry entertainment, and petty pranks are enemies, not friends. Friends cannot be got by social status, financial squander mania, outer scintillation and verbal assertions. See into the very soul, the inner motives and motivator, the deeper aspirations and achievements, and then yield your loyalty to such.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol.12, 1973-74
The feeling of friendship must activate every nerve, permeate every blood-cell, and purify every emotional wave; it has no place for the slightest trace of egotism. You cannot elevate the companionship that seeks to exploit or fleece for personal benefit into the noble quality of friendship. Perhaps the only friend who can pass this rigorous test is God. To understand and practice this noble emotion, the Bhagavat Gita is an invaluable guide. When Arjuna was dispirited and dejected, Krishna injected courage and a high sense of duty into him and helped him avoid disgraceful defeat. And Arjuna, too, like a good friend, took the advice in good spirit with the full confidence that Krishna meant well by him. Why, we know how confident he was of the wisdom and power inherent in Krishna. When Krishna gave him the choice, “To help you in battle, you can have either my entire army or myself alone, unarmed and determined not to fight in spite of any provocation.” And Arjuna did not hesitate to decide which of these two he wanted. He chose the unarmed Krishna, and prayed that He might be his charioteer during the days when he rode into the field.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol.12, 1973-74
Embodiments of Love!
Love is in you. It need not be acquired from outside. Worldly love is based on worldly relationships. Whomever you love, you love your own reflection. It is a mistake to think that you love someone else. You point to somebody and say, “He is my friend.” But, in fact, God alone is your true friend. He will never betray you. Sometimes you may doubt your true friend, but He will never doubt you or forsake you. Your feelings may change according to time and situation, but God is changeless. He always has the feeling of oneness. Once you consider God as your true friend, everyone will be friendly toward you. Truly speaking, you have no enemies. There is none other than you in this world. When there is no second person, how can there be an enemy? All are like passing clouds. But you think they are permanent and repose your faith in them. Consequently, you are unable to have faith in God, who is pure and selfless. You are forgetting the Divine love and getting intoxicated with the “deep wine” of worldly love.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol 37, 2004
It should be realized, however, that there is no greater friend for anyone than God. He is beyond the reach of praise or censure. He does not give up man on the ground of the latter’s failure to come up to His expectations. That is why God has been given the appellation, suhrid (a good friend). God desires no offerings from any devotee. God is the only one friend who confers benefits on devotees without expecting any return. Nevertheless, man does not readily accept such a friend. Only the man who accepts God as such a friend and is guided by His advice can understand the full meaning of Divine friendship. Faith of this nature alone constitutes true jnana.
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 24, 1991
