The fragrance of friendliness

[1]

Amrit Sadhana [1]

A word used loosely, and too often, dilutes its significance. Take, for instance, the word “friend”. Today we have Facebook friends, Twitter friends or mobile friends. It creates an illusion that the world is full of friends. However, in true sense, they are just acquaintances.

In modern lifestyle, friends don’t come by easily for friendship needs time and space to mature, just like wine . A real friend is the most unavailable species in the present time. People are so hard pressed for time, how can they have the
leisure and luxury of cultivating friends?
There was a time when friendships were treasured and nurtured; people were more humane, perhaps. Modern man sees friendship as a tool to better oneself or using it for self gain. Proverbs like “a friend in need is a friend indeed” have stemmed from this mentality. Looking for people who will help one in need reduces the other to a commodity.
In this extrovert world, having someone one can trust and to whom one can safely expose one’s hurts and wounds, one who can guide the other selflessly and be happy in each other’s prosperity is rare. Friendship has become a ship
that sinks easily when interests clash.
This is why Osho prefers the word friendliness to friendship. He says, “Friendship need not be addressed to anyone in particular; that is also a rotten idea, that you have to be friends with a certain person. Instead of creating friendship, create friendliness. Let it become a quality of your being, a climate that surrounds you, so that you are friendly with whomsoever you come in contact.”
Friendliness cannot be restricted to humans; it spreads like fragrance to the trees, flowers, birds and the whole environment. The environment is crying for friendliness, seeking some healing and loving caress from more compassionate humans. But it is a forgotten language for the intellectual, mercenary human beings of today.
So on this Friendship Day, which falls on August 5, press the “pause” button, stand still and look within. Do you see a glow of friendliness in your heart?
It needs a heart as innocent and pure as a child’s that can rejoice in others’ happiness, and can share its own abundance. Meditation is the best way to purify the heart, weed out all the hatred and violence breeding inside and empty it to receive the new healing energy. This kind of heart can share its abundant love and friendliness. It will give without expecting
anything in return; it will give without binding the other into a friendship.
Friendliness is a great privilege of mankind because it is not programmed by biology. It needs a conscious resolution to rise above narrow self-centredness and evolve to a new level of consciousness.