Who is a friend?

‘Mitra’ is a word in Hindi (sanskrit). So is ‘Sakha’. The love a friend bears towards another is of a very sweet kind. 

 Who is a friend to another? When we look at another person, we focus on two things. (a) Are his/her feelings okay? and (b) Is his/her behaviour okay? A ‘friend’ is highly focussed towards his friend’s feelings, less towards his actions. He is more into empathy than into judgement. Just as a mother’s emotional balloon envelopes her children’s jagged feelings, a friend seeks first to soothe, then to advise.

 Nowadays we use the word ‘friend’ loosely, covering a wide range of relationships, from the most casual to the most loyal. The Indian language is more subtle and differentiates between levels. Even between ‘mitra’ and ‘sakha’, ‘mitra’ is deeper and has less expectations. ‘Sakha’ still expects a good time from his association with his friend through common activities and emotions. ‘Mitra’ is just there, even if interactions have reduced greatly. He is always ready to help.

Soft and swift

In the ideal friend or partner, we look for two attritibutes:

• He or she should be sensitive to other's feelings
• He or she should be action-oriented and should take corrective measure

Obviously this is a bit of idealism, as most people are either one or the other - or neither.

The person may be very sensitive, understand what you need, with strong perspective and quick choice of what is the right thing to do but - too lazy to act. After some time the initial euphoria of having an 'understanding' friend wears off and we wish he would get up and do the things he talks about.

Or the person may be action-oriented. A good person overall because he (henceforth 'he' for simplicity) tries to correct whatever comes to his notice and is always circumspect in his dealings. But alas, he understands so little of what is really required in a relationship. He comes forth as a 'good guy' to people who are not close to him, but is an uncaring brute and a disappointment to those who are close to him and need his understanding and care to remain wholesome.

If you by chance get a friend who is both, just do not let go because such people are very rare and precious.

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The first step

As I grew older in life, passed through difficult times and gained 'wisdom', was able to tell what is the 'right' decision to take in a situation, I found that for me it became more dificult to make out what is right and for whom it is right. It was displayed time and again how absolutely individualistic are our experiences, how self-serving even the simplest decision. Even a great sacrifice for a loved one IS self-serving, because it serves the attachment that we have towards the person. We would not feel like making that same sacrifice for a non-loved one.

Similarly, it is a great past-time to advise people because our experience, in our eyes, is vast, our judgement universal, and the acceptance of our advice mandatory. When I just decide to close my eyes to this whole shebang and look at the bed of the lake, the only person to understand, moderate and deal with is Myself. Approach towards others in our life finally boils down to a few simple emotional directives:

1. Before judging, understand. Simply understand. Accept that what the other person is feeling is TRUE - it is true to him or her, before it becomes right or wrong. Acknowledge that truth of its existence.
2. Before advising, help. Before advising someone to buy a dish-washer, help her to wash dishes by hand, standing beside her. Before asking someone to get a grip on himself and get out of the emotional quagmire he is in, be in that quagmire with him and struggle for some time.

That way, one becomes a soothing influence. We are not here to change the world order. The world changes as a sum total all the time. We are here to ensure that the progression is smooth, that's all.
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Bow and arrow

We mostly lay a lot of stress on reason and look upon emotions as dangerous things, things that play topsy-turvy in an ordered world and makes us do things we regret later. I think we need to pay a lot more respect to emotion if we are to benefit by it. 

There are two areas where emotion plays the driver's role - in our memories, and in our strength of action. 

 What is it that we remember? We remember those incidents that are emotionally charged. Even when we remember facts, apparently dry facts, it is because of a background 'fear' of what may happen or what inconveniences we may face if we forget those facts. We remember more 'things to do' related to our loved ones than to our colleagues. Some memories make us happy; they are massaging our ego and loving ourselves. Some memories cause regret; they revive the feelings of fear, guilt, distaste. To an acute or to a mild degree, it is these feelings related to the events that drive our memory. We would hardly remember something purely 'reasonable'. So many thoughts keep crowding our mind. If we want relief from a particular thought, we have to understand the emotion that is tying that thought to us. Freedom follows. 

 Similarly, our actions are 90% driven by feeling. When we say we 'feel' like doing it, it is perfectly true and not an abberation. This feeling, the love for that particular action in anticipation of events that will follow, is what drives the action. The trick, however, is to feel like doing the 'reasonably correct' thing. If I say I am a principled person, I mean I love the execution of principles and love that version of me that encourages principles. This love drives me. If we allow ourselves to love the right qualities, then our actions will always be good. 

 Reason is the arrow. Feeling is the bow.

The six-barrelled gun

Peace and love go hand-in-hand. They are supposed to be our basic state. When we are not perturbed by something, we are at peace - the default condition. When our mind is not agitated by something, we are at peace and willing to look at other people with sympathy and love - the default feeling. 

 To be perturbed, first we have to want something, be attached to something. Then depending on whether we get it or not, or whether we get enough of it, who else has it, the nature and degree of our perturbation varies. These categories of perturbation (or distortions) are called ripus in the shashtras. There are six of them, which can be loosely described as follows in terms of attachment. Kama - attachment for something I do not have (lust). Krodha - attachment for something not happening my way(anger). Lobha - attachment for more of what I have (greed). Moha - attachment for what I have right now; I'll not let it go (possessiveness). Madh - attachment for my own qualities; I'm a great guy (pride). Matsarjya - attachment for someone else's qualities; wish I was like that (envy). 

 It is roughly in the descending order of ease of handling -- it is easiest to conquer envy and most difficult to conquer lust. These perturbations drive away peace. These distortions twist love into something else. These waves play havoc with our value system and compromise human values like kindness and generosity. It is against these ripus that our power of discrimination is required. Discrimination recognises that these are twisted crust on the surface of our peaceful mind, and that recognition helps to soften the crust and dissolve it.

Halo effect

In a group, how often have you heard the comment: "He is not a good chap! Only involved in work - no time for family at all."; or a similar remark that labels a person thoroughly and paints him from head to foot because of one aspect of his life? 

Judgement, an unavoidable aspect of thought, has two qualities that compromise fairness. One is that it is subjective; it depends on who is judging and what that person's value system is. A judgement reveals as much about the judge as the judged. The other is, it suffers from halo effect, something which comes through in the dialogue mentioned earlier. 

 A person lives his life through roles. His understanding of these roles are fed in during his growing up years. He has a mental map of what is the role of a father, son, employee, husband, friend social worker, patriot. They all involve certain activities. Activities consume resource, be it time or money. How to allocate a resource in case of a constraint comes out of his value system. So it may end up that if he has to spend one hour at work and one hour with family and has only one hour in hand, he may give it to work. His value system may say:"I am paid for working and my first priority is work". Another person's value system may say: "I live for my family and beyond working hours they get priority". If we really have to pass an opinion on a person (we'll avoid judging), we have to see him in all roles. It is very rare that a person can excel in all roles. A good employee may be a poor family-man. A good wife may be a poor mother. A good son may turn out a poor patriot. If we look at only one role and pass an opinion on the whole set, that is halo effect. 

 Of course, it is best not to pass an opinion at all. That person's value system is also a sort of given and beyond his capability to modify. But then, what to talk about at parties?

Train to forget

As a child I was once advised to take Brainolia, a popular tonic at that time, for improving memory. The ability to remember is a laudable one and quizzers have to have it in abundance. 

This relates to factual memory. When it comes to emotional memory, I don't have to try to remember. Every embarrassment, things that make made me angry or sad, every slight, insult, breach-of-trust is remembered in technicolor and recalled at will. 

Times do come when remembering is not fun anymore. And unless we forget, it is impossible to start afresh. But how to forget? Well, one can either try to deliberately remember the good things (what is called pratipaksh bhavana), so that in the mind the opinion about the offending person ultimately tilts towards the positive. The past is nothing but present memory. So if we can influence our memory a bit, it helps. 

Or one can realise and accept the truth that inside the apparently steady physical body, everyone is actually new every moment, like every frame of a film is actually a new one - looks continuous since it runs. The person who offended us may be different now. Maybe mostly same because of his/her own memory function, but we can admit the possibility for change, and not give in to a "Kuchh nahi honewala" syndrome. 

Intelligence knows how to remember. Wisdom knows how to forget.