Friendship

Here is an anecdote from Shacher Bryn Beorse, a mureed of Inayat Khan: Someone had asked us "What does Murshid mean to you?" "Well," said I, "a friend, an example." "Oh you don't understand at all. Murshid is so much more than all that." That same evening Murshid gave a talk but before he started he looked thoughtful, then said: "Before I start my talk I want to mention that sometimes a teacher's best friends become his worst enemies – by lifting him up onto a pedestal and making of him an inhuman monster instead of what he is and wants to be: Just a friend.

Friendship is the first lesson of spirituality that one can learn.

Although friendship is a simple thing to consider, it is most difficult to practice it. If we live a life of friendliness there is nothing better we can live for, and if we know the principle of friendship we do not need the moral of the world. If instead of his own advantage and rules of conduct a man considers the advantage and rules of another person, then he begins to see that person’s soul, but as long as he sees the other as a separate being different from himself he will see him wrongly.

If on our part there is no desire to overlook our friend’s shortcomings, there can be no more friendship. Friendship is maintained by recognizing that a human being is imperfect, that he has faults and shortcomings.

The use of friendship for a selfish motive is like mixing bitter poison with sweet rose-syrup; and it is necessary to be ready, without the least hesitation, to serve a friend attentively, in every capacity of life, not expecting for one moment any thanks or return from him.

When, in friendship, a thought arises, ‘I will love you as you love me’, or, ‘I will do to you as you do to me’, this takes away all the virtue of the friendship, because it is a commercial attitude, prevalent everywhere in the commercial world: everything is done for a return, and measure is given for measure. Friendship should be the contrary pole to the practical side of life; for when a person is tired by the selfish surroundings of the world he feels inclined to take refuge in the love and kindness of a sympathetic friend.

However learned a person may be, however pious, spiritual, or experienced, if he has not learned the nature and character of friendship he has not learned anything. This is the first and the last thing we have to learn. We so often use this word lightly, calling every acquaintance a friend, or professing to be somebody’s friend; but the more we realize the meaning of it, the less we are able to claim friendship. For everything in life we are tested, examined, and tried, but to pass this examination of friendship is the most difficult thing in the world.

This tendency to friendship can be found even among the animals. There is a story of a hunter who was shooting birds one day in the forest, and saw two birds sitting on a branch of a tree. He shot one bird and it dropped to the ground. As this man was at a distance it took him some time to arrive at the spot, and while he was walking towards it he saw that the other bird had come down to look at its mate. It touched it with its beak and found that it was dead, and by the time the man arrived he found both birds dead. ‘From that day,’ he said, ‘I gave up shooting, for I had seen a friendship among birds which one cannot find among mankind.’

Friendship is the first lesson of spirituality that one can learn. One may think that friendship, a personal friendship, means nothing; that one does not become spiritual through a personal friendship. But one does. A person begins his spiritual accomplishment by learning how to be a friend. For one who is really treading the path of friendship need not go anywhere to learn morals. Friendship itself teaches him sincerity, gratitude, sympathy, tenderness, appreciation; all these things that we must learn in this world, friendship teaches us. And once a man begins to learn these things through friendship with one person, he will naturally show to others the same virtues which he has acquired by going along this path; just as someone who has learned how to sing beautifully will naturally sing every song that is given to him beautifully. The one who has cultivated his heart through friendship will naturally be inclined to be friends with others.

It is not belief in God which leads us to the goal, nor is it the analysis and the knowledge of God that bring us there. It is the friendship of God. For someone who learns the lesson of friendship in this world, this lesson develops in the end into friendship with God. But when a person exacts in return from his friend all that he does for him, then it is not friendship, it is business. It only means: I give you a shilling and you give me twelve pence. When a person judges his friend, then the spirit of friendship is not awakened in his heart, for a friend never judges. When a person talks to another about his friend, when he blames him, when he criticizes him, he does not know what friendship is. The meaning of friendship is too sacred to realize. All other relationships and connections in this life are empty if friendship is not at the back of them to strengthen them.

Life is as we look at it. If we wish to find faults we can find faults in the best person in the world, and if we wish to find good points we can fund good points in the worst person in the world. It is as we see life. Someone went to Jami, the great seer of Persia, and asked him if he would accept him as his disciple on the spiritual path. Jami asked him, ‘Have you loved, have you learned the manner of friendship?’ He said, ‘No, not yet.’ Jami said, ‘Go into the world again, and learn it.’ The first lesson on the spiritual path that one has to learn is the manner of friendship. Once that is learned then all other parts of the spiritual journey will become easy.

Relationship is nourished by contact, kingship is maintained by reciprocity, but friendship is developed with love. There is no relationship that can be compared with friendship, for it is in learning the law of friendship that one understands ethics and morals, and also the relation between man and God.

I have always heard my Murshid say that a friendship in the path of God and Truth cannot be compared with any other friendship, because every other friendship has some or other reason for it, but this friendship is higher than any other friendship because it leads to perfection.

The one who has never learnt the manner of friendship will never know the way to God. He may be God’s worshipper, but he cannot be the friend of God.

Grace...is the friendship of God. God’s grace does not come specially to the pious, it does not come necessarily to the people who are very good, nor does it come readily to the people who are very occult or mystical. It comes as love comes from friend to friend.

The perfection of friendship, in which lies all spiritual perfection, comes when the soul is so developed that there is no one whom it cannot bear. When it has reached this state, it has certainly passed into the ranks of those initiates whose names are written in the spiritual records.