Role of Friends in Life.

The meaning and nature of friendship changes with the stages of life.  In real life, friendship does not remain the same throughout life. As a man grows, circumstances, ego, jealousy, misunderstandings, and economic differences slowly test relationships.  Many friends come close for some time and later move away.  This is natural reality of life. 

Below is a more realistic view of friendship through the stages of life.

1. Age 4-6: At this age, friends are playmates.  A child thinks a friend is someone who shares toys, plays games, and spends time together.   Friendship is innocent and temporary.  If a quarrel happens, it is forgotten quickly. 

2. Age 7-15: Friends become school companions. Children start forming small groups.  Friendship is based on studying together, playing sports, and common interests. Loyalty begins to develop, but it is still strongly influenced by surroundings. 

3. Age 16-30: This is the period of multiple, significant life transitions. This is the age of emotional bonding and influence. Young people trust friends deeply, share secrets, dreams, and ambitions. Friends often influence decisions, habits, and life direction.  Good friends uplift; wrong friends can mislead. During teenage years emotions are intense, understanding is limited. During teenage years, boys and girls naturally begin to seek their own identity, so they feel more comfortable with friends who are at the same stage, share similar emotions, and offer freedom without judgment and this makes them trust friends more than parents, who they may see as strict or less understanding.   Attraction is easily mistaken for deep love. The so-called love at this stage is based on attraction, liking, shared experiences and expectation like care, attention, response and often incudes attachment and possessiveness. It also changes with time, situation, behavior and can bring joy or pain. The feeling is 'I care for you, so you should also care for me'. So, in many cases one person develops deeper feelings, the other sees it as just friendship. When the other person gets married, moves on in life, the one with one-sided love feels hurt or empty and slowly withdraws or drops away.   However, while friends provide emotional comfort, parents offer experience and long-term guidance. The young mind is driven more by feelings, whereas maturity brings discrimination; hence this phase is natural, and with gentle guidance, teenagers gradually learn to balance both friendship and parental wisdom. 

         4. Age 30-40: True friends become practical and supportive.  Life responsibilities--                career, family--reduce time for social life.  Friends at this stage are those who support         during struggles, career growth, and family responsibilities.  

         5. Age 41-65: Friends become companions of understanding.  People value friends who         can discuss life experiences, health, family matters, and philosophy.  Friends becomes             more stable mature and less demanding. 

         6. Age 65-85: Real Friends become sources of comfort and reflection.  Many friends             may drift away due to distance, illness, or death.  At this stage, many people turn to             spirituality because awareness of death and fragility increases, so they seek meaning,             peace, and hope beyond the body and possessions. Loneliness, illness and losses make         devotion a source of emotional support, community and strength.  Finally, often                   realises that the truest friend is the Divine within. External friends may be very few, but         inner companionship with God, prayer and spiritual practice becomes the greatest                 support. 

 

Conclusion: Everyone, young or old, should follow the Bhagavat Githa because it is a timeless guide that teaches how to act rightly, face difficulties with courage, control the mind, and live a God centered, peaceful, and truly meaningful life. 

Lord Srikrishna in Chapter 2 Verses 14 and 71 teaches us the truths of life:

'matra-sparshas tu kaunteya shitoshna-sukha-duhkha-dahagamapayino ’nityas tans-titikshasva bharata'

O son of Kunti, the contact between the senses and the sense objects gives rise to fleeting perceptions of happiness and distress. These are non-permanent and comeand go     like the winter and summer seasons. O descendent of Bharat, one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

The human body houses five senses—the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing and these, in contact with their objects of perception, give rise to sensations of happiness and distress. None of these sensations is permanent. They come and go like the changing seasons. Although cool water provides pleasure in the summer, the same water         gives distress in the winter. Thus, both the perceptions of happiness and distress experienced through the senses are transitory. If we permit ourselves to be affected by         them, we will sway like a pendulum from side to side. A person of discrimination should practice to tolerate both the feelings of happiness and distress without being disturbed by them

 

"vihaya kaman yah sarvan pumansh charati nihsprihah nirmamo nirahankarah sa shantim adhigachchhati"

 

That person, who gives up all material desires and lives free from a sense of greed, proprietorship, and egoism, attains perfect peace.In this verse, Shree Krishna lists the things that disturb one’s peace and then asks Arjun to give them up.

Material desires: The moment we harbor a desire, we walk into the trap of greed and anger. Either way, we get trapped. So, the path to inner peace does not lie in fulfilling desires, but instead in eliminating them.

Greed: Firstly, greed for material advancement is a great waste of time. Secondly, it is an endless chase. In developed countries, very few people are deprived of enough to eat and wear, and yet they remain disturbed; this is because their hankering is still unsatisfied. Thus, those who possess the wealth of contentment possess one of the biggest treasures of life.

Ego: Most of the quarrels that erupt between people stem from the ego. Mark H McCormack, author of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School writes: “Most corporate executives are one giant ego, with a couple of arms and legs sticking out.” Statistics reveal that a majority of executives, who lose their jobs in the senior management level, do so not because of professional incompetence, but because of interpersonal issues. The way to peace is not to nurture and increase pride, but to get rid of it.

Proprietorship: The feeling of proprietorship is based upon ignorance because the whole world belongs to God. We came empty-handed in the world, and we will go back empty-handed. How then can we think of worldly things as ours?

Reference: Comentary on Bhagavath Githa by Swamy Mukundananda.