Friendship That Lets You be and Lets Others Be, Too
The various kinds of friendships that people enter into and what vitiates them or makes them worthwhile. An attempt is made to look at friendship not from the physical and human point of view, but from the higher consciousness point of view. The burden is on the individual, in spite of having the insights given in this article, to stay in a bond of friendship against seeming odds or to check out. It all depends on the person, his goals and state of consciousness.
Many people would be better off without the friends they have now just because these friends no longer serve the needs of personal growth and positive advancement. The moment they realize that the friends they’ve are fair weather friends, that ends it. It all depends on one’s sense of discrimination and what one wants in life. On the other side the mercenary who wants only material benefits from a friendship, is quick to terminate a relationship which doesn’t serve material ends. Thus once a particular goal has been achieved, the mercenary friend doesn’t see the need for further friendship. This kind of friendship is seen at the personal, community, national and international levels. The victims growl in the shadows with maimed hearts and can hardly express their plight. They went into friendship thinking they were on the celestial lane of friendship.
A corollary of mercenary friendship is friendship based on power, on the ability to use material goods and services to influence others, the giving and withdrawal of which has great leverage on the friendship. The person practicing this kind of friendship knows what strings to pull to engage the other party in a macabre dance,and he pulls them at whim. You’ll hear statements like ” you’ve been missing, keep in touch, I’ve not seen you for ages” etc. In this kind of friendship only one party takes the initiative to ask after the other, make calls, pay visits, request live chats etc. The other party is the lord almighty, the governor who has the yam and the knife. However if one is not a slave to material things, he’ll not find himself in such a position. Yet the needs of daily existence, poverty and deprivation have helped forge many dictatorial friendships and unions, temporarily or for a lifetime. If the rich and powerful knew any better, this shouldn’t be the case, but they continue to talk from a high pedestal. Once the other party has a way out or realizes what’s been going on, the condescending dictator passing for a friend loses a disciple and has to look for a new recruit. His heart is a cold stone in the middle of the river. He’ll never have a true friend because he is not a friend, but an oppressor of the free human spirit.
It is said that the only way to have a friend is to be one yourself. Notwithstanding, some people go the needless extra mile. They’ll lose whatever esteem they have just to maintain friendship. It seems they must have their friends or cease to exist. The result is loss of individuality. Many people become nonentities, not realizing that some friendships need to be discontinued, shelved because they are a burden psychically and spiritually. Can anything be more inimical to the advancement of the human spirit, to the human soul, than such claptrap friendship? The burden is with each individual to decide to leave others free or to get into real friendship. Everyone is under a moral and spiritual obligation to evaluate the quality of friendship offered, then accept or reject it. One should look before one leaps in order not to find oneself in a tight corner resulting from uncircumspective acceptance of friendship.
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