Good friends are something extremely important in life. Apart from supporting us in day-to-day life, friends are the ones who can save us in moments of crisis, when we feel betrayed by people we used to trust (which unfortunately happens frequently in our day and age). Without a few good spiritual friends, it’s quite improbable we will be able to make it in this life, there are too many things that can go wrong.
However, true friends are something extremely rare, and they are becoming more and more uncommon as time passes. Paradoxically, nowadays the average person keeps contact with more people than in any other period of human history, but still, most have very few (if any) real friends. In spiritual life, we may have the impression that it is even rarer. Why is that?
One problem is that friendships are based on letting our guard down, which not everyone is ready to do. Because most of us have a load of pain and betrayals from the past, we tend to build fences to protect ourselves around people. While this is useful to ensure basic survival, this prevents us from making good friends. We may thus have many acquaintances, but no real friends.
Social networks only exacerbated this problem since they are based on the idea of having admirers, people who follow us because of the image we project, and not based on what we are. Paradoxically, a great number of followers can lead to low self-esteem, as the gap between the successful image we project and our real self widens.
When we start practicing spiritual life, we often assume that we found a safe space where we can let our guard down. This is of course a healthy attitude that, if properly supported, can help us a lot. The problem is that often we are faced with the same betrayals we face in the general society. This leads us to harden even more and raise our fences even higher.
The fact we are part of a spiritual institution paradoxically makes this culture of betrayal often even stronger, because the needs of the institution are often put ahead of the well-being of the individuals, and loyalty to leaders is often put ahead of personal relationships. Unfortunately, this culture is often not just tolerated but encouraged. In 1996, for example, I attended a course on book distribution. At the end, there was a written questionnaire, which was mainly directed at devotees living in the temple (which was common at the time), especially Brahmacaris. One of the questions was what to do if a friend from the ashram would confidentially reveal to you he was doing some minor transgression, like eating chocolate. I answered one should keep the secret and try to help him. The “correct” answer was that one should report him to the authorities…
Fortunately, someone saw the light, and the test was later revised, but this gives an idea of what was the predominant attitude at certain places and certain times in our movement and our failures in building a culture of trust.
In this way, building relationships starts with us opening up and trusting people, but this is just half of the equation. The other part is to find trustworthy people we can open up with since letting the fences down with people of questionable values or character will just lead to betrayals, which will just put us back.
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes that one should not associate with devotees of bad character. One may chant his rounds, use tilaka, visit the temple, etc. and this is very good, but if one has bad character, we should not intimate associate with him or her. This advice shows that this kind of discernment is not only allowed but necessary in our spiritual life. Without it, it’s not possible to build deep relationships, because we will keep associating with the wrong type of people and being hardened by their betrayals.
A good exercise is to divide people we know into three categories: people who we trust, people who we don’t trust, and people who we don’t know. Trust in this case is an entirely personal decision. It doesn’t have to have any logical explanation. Trust is my personal call, something I have the right to decide for myself.
When we follow that, we can be open with people we trust and keep normal social fences with people we don’t know, based on general formality and etiquette, while people who we don’t trust (and especially people who betrayed us in the past) may just be avoided and related to only in a formal way.
When we do that, there is no need to judge anyone. A person may be a perfectly good devotee, but if I don’t trust him or her, I may choose to not associate with him. This is my personal choice and no one has anything to do with it. Gour Govinda Maharaja was making this point decades ago in connection with institutional leaders. Different authorities should be respected based on their service, just like a policeman, but trust is a personal call.
How trust is developed? We give a little bit and we see what is the reaction. If it leads to a positive interaction we may trust a little more, and thus progressively. If the reaction is negative, on the other hand, we may decide to trust a little less.
People on the trusted box are devotees with who we had a number of positive interactions in the past, who we trusted and proved worthy of our trust, devotees who proved to be our well-wishers, and who are trusted by other people we trust, who reciprocate, and so on. With these devotees, we should develop the six kinds of exchanges described in the Nectar of Instruction: Offering gifts in charity, accepting charitable gifts, revealing one’s mind in confidence, inquiring confidentially, accepting prasāda, and offering prasāda.
The untrusted box, on the other hand, may be filled with devotees who are unreliable, who betrayed us or others in the past, with who we had negative interactions, and so on. With these we may just act civilly, keeping a good layer of formality. People may go from one box to the other over time, and devotees who we don’t know may also go to one box or the other as we come to know them.
If you don’t know where to start, you can start by asking yourself these five questions about each person you know. This may help you to understand who you can trust and who you don’t:
1- Does he/she come in and out of my life on a whim, or does he stay?
2- How available he or she is to spend time together?
3- Can I count on him or her if I need something?
4- Does he or she reply to my emails and texts on a consistent basis? Do I get news from him? (Everyone has his rhythm, one doesn’t have to text you every day, but the answers should be consistent, be it in an hour, or a few days.)
5- Is he or she predictable? Can I count on him or her to be consistent in a time of crisis?
If these five elements are not in place, you may think twice before considering developing a deeper connection with a person, be it for friendship or any other important relationship.
One point we should keep in mind however is that it is only possible to develop sincere relationships when we develop a good deal of real humility. Friendships are based on being on the same level. It’s not possible to develop relationships with anyone when we pretend to be higher than them. Often devotees who judge themselves as better than others may go on for decades without having a single good friend, and then fall down spectacularly due to a lack of good association and good advice. One may even become a spiritual leader and have hundreds of followers, but without the proper attitude, he or she will still not have real friends.
This brings us to another problem. Often we fall into the mistake of projecting an unrealistic image of ourselves as some kind of advanced devotee, instead of just being who we are. When we do this, we start to look down on devotees who are on the same level (the ones with who we could become good friends), and instead end up surrounded by devotees with a similar superficial attitude, which may not be the best people to try to develop deep friendships.
A final point is that real friendships can only come after a long time after the bond of trust is firmly built. We may meet people who may look very much in sync with us, but until these relationships pass the test of time, we can’t call them true friends. True friendships are so important and valuable precisely because they are so difficult to form. That’s also why we should be very attentive to our friends, spend time with them, listen to them, and be sure to reciprocate.