Friends

I remember a class of Srila Prabhupada where he said that there are different degrees of friends. There is the common friend, the common friend is not our intimate friend. Then there is the intimate friend.  With this person, there is a relationship based on love and trust, when you are happy in the consciousness of God or Krishna this friend is very happy, and when you are experiencing problems and sufferings, this friend helps you without wanting anything in return.

One is sure that my intimate friend will never betray me. The other day a devotee sent me some nectar of Srila Prabhupada and I replied that you are my best friend because you are transmitting to me Srila Prabhupada. And another devotee sends me the information of all the festivals of the Vaisnava calendar. We celebrate the apparitions of God or Krishna and His devotees.  That too is very good. And then, there is our best well-wisher, our Gurudeva, the authorized spiritual master who is known to be the beloved of God or Krishna, the Supreme Lord.  He  gives liberation from the torments of material bondage. The devotee must think that God or Krishna has sent me Sri Gurudeva to liberate me, and in this way everything is perfectly harmonized, understanding that the spiritual master is a confidential confidential servant of Srimati Radharani.

Usually people do not understand what a spiritual master authorized by God or Krishna is, nor do they know that at the time of initiation the guru grabs all the karma of his disciple and with his spiritual power reduces it to ashes, Srila Prabhupada says in The Srimad Bhagavatam, 8, 7, 44, that great personalities usually accept voluntary sufferings to alleviate the suffering of ordinary people. This is considered to be the highest form of worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or Krishna, who is in everyone’s heart. We all have an intimate and eternal relationship with God or Krishna and His devotees on the absolute platform or pure goodness. God or Krishna and His devotees are infallible and our best friends.

A great devotee said that it is a great mistake to think that the pure devotees of God or Krishna die, they die to live and preach the glories of God or Krishna and His devotees throughout the universes, and he who obeys his instructions lives with he eternally.