The following is an excerpt from “An Anthology of Counsel,” a chapter from the book Finding the Joy Within You: Personal Counsel for God-Centered Living that contains words of guidance and inspiration drawn from satsangas given by Sri Daya Mata and letters she wrote to Self-Realization Fellowship members. Sri Daya Mata was one of Paramahansa Yogananda’s closest disciples and served as the third president and spiritual head of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India from 1955 until her passing in 2010.
In many of Guruji’s letters to devotees throughout the years, he closed with the words, “In divine friendship”; and he chose this phrase as the customary closing for letters from Self-Realization Fellowship to its members.
He often said to us that the highest and purest relationship that can exist between souls is the spirit of friendship. There is no compulsion in it.
He was not speaking of ordinary human friendship; he meant friendship that is unconditional, the kind that Christ had for his disciples and that they felt for their guru and for one another. It is impersonal, and yet is the closest of relationships. It is open in the sense that one is accepted unconditionally, as he is, with all his flaws.
If differences of opinion arise, a friend is not misjudged; the friendship remains unbroken, and grows sweeter with time. Guruji used to say to those beloved devotees who were close to him: “Friendship is like wine; it grows sweeter with age.”
World Fellowship: The Panacea for Humanity
I want to read a few thoughts of Guruji’s on the ideal of universal friendship, world fellowship:
“‘World fellowship’ seems a very simple phrase, but in these two words is the panacea for all the individual, social, and political ills that are threatening the world’s material, mental, moral, and spiritual happiness....This world belongs not to you nor to me. We are travelers, here for just a little time. This world belongs to God. He is our President, and under Him we must establish a united world, with every brother nation living in fellowship....The way is to know God; and the way to know Him is to meditate on Him....World fellowship alone can banish hatred and prevent wars. World fellowship alone can stabilize prosperity for all mankind. Therefore I say to you, bring that fellowship into your hearts by communing with God. Feel the fatherhood of God, and that every human being belongs to you. As soon as you feel God in your heart, you will contribute to world civilization as no king or politician has ever done before. Love all those with whom you come in contact. Be able to say with conviction, ‘He is my brother, for my God who is in me is also in him.’”
What our world needs so much today is that more individuals make the effort to expand their consciousness beyond the little self by giving divine love and friendship to all.
Giving Love and Friendship to All
Guruji said of Mahatma Gandhi that he didn’t belong to India alone. Here was a simple man — whom Guruji had met and spent some days with — a humble soul who lived in utter simplicity and dressed only in a loincloth. He was the truest Christian produced in this modern age, and yet he was a Hindu from India. He said: “Whoever loves my India, he is an Indian.” In these words, he excluded no one from his love. He included all mankind in his love for God and for his own people. He recognized and exemplified the universality of the human spirit.
That is the spirit Gurudeva manifested in his life also. He knew no strangers. He met everyone with an outstretched hand — with sweet, simple, childlike trust and friendship. He gave understanding to those who understood him not. He practiced the ideal of first seeking God earnestly — we must be satisfied beyond any doubt that we are His, and that He responds to the secret call of our hearts — and then he gave the same divine love and friendship he found in God to everyone who crossed his path.
We invite you to learn about The Spiritual Expression of Friendship, a forthcoming book presenting Paramahansa Yogananda’s timeless wisdom on true friendship and how it can transform our lives and our world.
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