Krishna: The Friend Within
A small postscript to yesterday’s conversation on friendship.
Manu asked me this morning:
“Does anyone even read your blog? You just keep writing.”
My answer was brutally honest:
“People keep getting me to write; then I read it myself!”
And then I admitted something even more important:
“Yaar, when it comes to friendship, you are far ahead of me. That is what the whole blog ultimately concludes.”
Because some people are blessed with friends who have travelled with them for decades—not necessarily discussing philosophy or great ideas, but simply sharing jokes, illness, family occasions, losses, celebrations and ordinary days.
That itself is an extraordinary form of wealth.
But our conversation left me with a deeper question:
What if the ultimate friend is not another person at all?
What if the friend we are searching for outside is already present within?
The problem of the lonely traveller
There are days when one feels like a traveller carrying a rather inconvenient vehicle.
The body has its limitations.
The mind keeps wandering.
The buddhi—the discriminating intellect—can become so clever that it rationalises almost anything.
And chitta, carrying memories, impressions and desires, has a habit of dragging yesterday into today.
When the body doesn't cooperate,
the mind doesn't cooperate,
the intellect keeps confusing the issue,
and the chitta keeps replaying the past—
what is the traveller supposed to do?
Perhaps this is where the idea of friendship with oneself becomes more profound than ordinary friendship.
The Gita's remarkable idea of the “friend”
The Bhagavad Gita says:
uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ
nātmānam avasādayet
One should raise oneself by oneself and should not allow oneself to fall.
And immediately afterwards:
ātmaiva hyātmano bandhuḥ
ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ
The self alone can be one's friend.
And the self alone can be one's enemy.
But there is an even deeper dimension to this.
Who is this “friend” within?
Is it merely our psychological self—the mind, ego and personality?
Vedantic thought takes us further.
Krishna as Paramātman — the Friend who never leaves
The Gita later describes the Supreme as dwelling in the heart of every being:
sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo
“I am seated in the heart of all.”
And the Upanishadic image is even more beautiful:
Two birds sit on the same tree.
One bird eats the fruits.
The other simply witnesses.
The first is the individual experiencing life—pleasure, pain, success, failure, attachment and loss.
The second is the Paramātman, the witnessing consciousness.
Always present.
Always watching.
Never abandoning us.
This changes the entire meaning of friendship.
Perhaps the ultimate friend is not the person who accompanies us for twenty, thirty or fifty years.
The ultimate friend is the One who has accompanied us through every moment of our existence.
Before our first human friendship.
Before our first success.
Before our first heartbreak.
Before we even knew who we were.
Krishna as Paramātman was already there.
Krishna and Arjuna: the outer and inner friend
This makes the Krishna–Arjuna relationship even more fascinating.
On the battlefield, Krishna appears as Arjuna's external friend and charioteer.
But philosophically, Krishna is also the Paramātman, the inner presence.
Arjuna thinks he is asking Krishna for advice.
At a deeper level, perhaps the individual self is finally turning towards the Inner Friend.
And Krishna does something extraordinary.
He doesn't simply give Arjuna an answer.
He gives him viveka—the capacity to see.
He takes him from:
“I don't know what to do.”
to:
“I understand what I must do.”
And finally Arjuna says:
kariṣye vacanaṁ tava
“I shall act according to your word.”
The purpose of the inner friend is therefore not to make us dependent upon Him.
It is to make us free enough to act according to dharma.
Why Krishna is a different kind of friend
Ordinary friendship has a limitation.
A friend can be with you only when circumstances allow.
He may live in another city.
He may become busy.
He may misunderstand you.
He may die.
Even the most intimate human friendship is ultimately subject to time.
But Paramātman is not.
He is the witness of every state:
waking, dreaming, sleeping;
success and failure;
youth and old age;
clarity and confusion.
He knows the version of us that nobody else has seen.
And yet He remains.
That is perhaps the most radical definition of friendship:
The One who knows everything about you and does not abandon you.
Then what does “becoming your own friend” mean?
Perhaps the Gita's teaching can now be understood differently.
To become one's own friend is not merely to cultivate a positive self-image.
It is to bring the mind, intellect and ego into alignment with the deeper Self.
The problem is that we normally mistake the traveller's equipment for the traveller.
We say:
“My body.”
“My mind.”
“My thoughts.”
“My memories.”
“My desires.”
But who is the “I” to whom all these belong?
That question takes us from psychology into spirituality.
And here Krishna as Paramātman becomes central.
The real friend does not merely comfort you
A superficial friend says:
“Don't worry. Everything will be fine.”
The inner Friend says:
“See clearly.”
A superficial friend may protect your ego.
Krishna repeatedly destroys Arjuna's false identification.
A superficial friend may help you escape your difficult situation.
Krishna sends Arjuna into Kurukshetra.
A superficial friend may tell you what you want to hear.
Krishna tells Arjuna what he needs to understand.
That is why the Gita is not merely a dialogue between teacher and student.
It is a dialogue between:
the individual self and the Paramātman,
the confused traveller and the Inner Guide,
the human being and his eternal friend.
And suddenly Manu's friendship makes sense too
Perhaps this is why I should not dismiss Manu's “general bakchodi” with his old friends.
Human friendship has its own sacredness.
Someone who has known you since graduation carries memories that nobody else possesses.
Someone who comes when your mother dies.
Someone who travels for your family wedding.
Someone who sits with you without needing a philosophical topic.
Someone with whom you can simply be stupid.
That is not trivial.
It is human sakhya.
But perhaps even this friendship is ultimately a reflection of something deeper.
We seek in another human being:
acceptance, trust, continuity, understanding, presence, affection and freedom to be ourselves.
And all these qualities point towards the relationship with the Paramātman.
Human friendship is temporary.
Sakhya with Krishna is eternal.
The final irony
So Manu may actually be right.
Perhaps he is far ahead of me in friendship.
He has figured out how to maintain relationships with people.
I am still trying to figure out how to maintain a relationship with the One who is always with me.
I began this morning by saying:
“Mai khud ka friend ban jaaun, ab aisa koi upaay karo.”
But perhaps that formulation itself is incomplete.
I don't have to manufacture a friend within.
I have to discover the Friend who is already within.
The body may fail.
The mind may wander.
The buddhi may become confused.
The chitta may drag me through old memories.
Friends may come and go.
Life may become Kurukshetra.
But the Paramātman remains seated in the heart.
Quietly witnessing.
Quietly waiting.
Not forcing.
Not abandoning.
Perhaps that is why Krishna is called Suhṛdam Sarva-bhūtānām—
the well-wishing friend of all beings.
And therefore the ultimate spiritual journey may not be:
“How do I find more friends?”
Nor even:
“How do I become my own friend?”
But:
“How do I recognise Krishna—the Paramātman—as the Friend who has never ceased to be with me?”
Then perhaps loneliness itself changes meaning.
The traveller discovers that he was never travelling alone.
He had simply forgotten who was sitting beside him.
श्रीकृष्ण परमात्मने नमः।
