True friendship, online and off.

A young friend shared an article on my facebook page today. From the UTne Reader and titled "Faux Friendship" the author of the article was comparing online and real life friendships as two separate things, finding "online"  guilty of eroding the values of true friendship.  


Reading the article made me wonder whether the author had experienced - both in real life and online - the pure joy of sharing and communicating with like-minded souls in ways that are "authentic, transparent, wise" (as Soren Gordhamer  says).  I wondered, too, if he (the author) was exasperated by perhaps not having found what he was searching for on facebook or other online forums.


"Friendship" he said, "was a high calling, demanding extraordinary qualities of character, rooted in virtue and dedicated to the pursuit of goodness and truth.".  Was?   To me friendship is friendship... online and offline.  The online environment is purely a platform for people to connect. As my favourite swami says "The pots and pans are not the cooking".


Another thing I wondered was whether the author had taken the opportunity to join one of the thousands of online communities, where individuals befriend each other, sharing thoughts and resources to bring about positive change, actions for good, benefiting the millions in our world disadvantaged by a lack of connectedness? Here are just two awesome examples of connecting for change by "online" friends: Eddie and Venessa .


Last month in Silicon Valley a group of amazing people (including Eddie and Venessa) met face-to-face, having connected through social media to share a three day conversation about being mindful in a digital world.   Please enjoy a taste of the values of true friendship as experienced here at the Wisdom 2.0 Summit.


In me those three days sparked a beautiful realisation that "the moral content of classical friendship, its commitment to virtue and mutual improvement" is not lost, but  infinitely enhanced by our online connections.

"Absolute Truth"

"The Absolute Truth is realized in three phases of understanding by the knower of the Absolute Truth, and all of them are identical.  Such phases of the Absolute Truth are expressed as Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan." (Bhag. 1.2.11) 

These three divine aspects can be explained by the example of the sun, which also has three different aspects, namely the sunshine, the sun's surface and the sun planet itself. 

One who studies the sunshine only is the preliminary student. One who understands the sun's surface is further advanced. And one who can enter into the sun planet is the highest. 

Ordinary students who are satisfied by simply understanding the sunshine -- its universal pervasiveness and the glaring effulgence of its impersonal nature may be compared to those who can realize only the Brahman feature of the Absolute Truth. (one with our soul energy)

The student who has advanced still further can know the sun disc, which is compared to knowledge of the Paramatma feature of the Absolute Truth.(the supersoul).  And the student who can enter into the heart of the sun planet is compared to those who realize the personal features of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Therefore, the transcendentalists who have realized this Bhagavan feature of the Absolute Truth, are the topmost transcendentalists, although all students who are engaged in the study of the Absolute Truth are engaged in the same subject matter. 

The sunshine, the sun disc and the inner affairs of the sun planet cannot be separated from one another, and yet the students of the three different phases are in three different states of realisation.

Extract 2:2 Contents of the Gita Summarised

Gaura Purnima Festival - Lord Caitanya's appearance day

Happy Birthday Lord Caitanya, born on the day of the full moon in Feburary 1486. He was also known as Gaura (the golden one). It was he who started chanting Hare Krishna. Read about him here

My dear friend, Krishna Balaram Das, a deeply knowledgeable and pure young bramacari from Vrindavana - sent me this beautiful verse in honour of Caitanya Mahaprabhu's special day.

"All glories to that inconceivable Lord who descended to bestow the gift of perfect love for His own lotus feet. He is an ocean filled with many kinds of sweetness, and He always bears the fragrance of fresh youth. In His form as Çré Caitanya He has realized the last extreme of transcendental experience, the love residing eternally in the gopés."
brhad bhagavatam 1.1.1

J Krishnamurti on Love and doing nothing

Thoughts I've heard in conversations this week...love, absolute truth, connectedness, oneness... inspired me to revisit J.Krishnamurti's teachings....

"Love is something that is new, fresh, alive. It has no yesterday and no tomorrow. It is beyond the turmoil of thought. It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.

To find this extraordinary thing which man has sought endlessly through sacrifice, through worship, through relationship, through sex, through every form of pleasure and pain, is only possible when thought comes to understand itself and comes naturally to an end. Then love has no opposite, then love has no conflict.

You may ask, `If I find such a love, what happens to my wife, my children, my family? They must have security.' When you put such a question you have never been outside the field of thought, the field of consciousness. When once you have been outside that field you will never ask such a question because then you will know what love is in which there is no thought and therefore no time.

You may read this mesmerized and enchanted, but actually to go beyond thought and time - which means going beyond sorrow - is to be aware that there is a different dimension called love. But you don't know how to come to this extraordinary fount - so what do you do? If you don't know what to do, you do nothing, don't you? Absolutely nothing. Then inwardly you are completely silent. Do you understand what that means? It means that you are not seeking, not wanting, not pursuing; there is no centre at all. Then there is love."

Read more of J Krishnamurti on Love here