***When you think of God as your Friend ***

When you think of God as your Friend, that relationship expresses the grandest form of love and devotion. Friendship is the touchstone by which we may know the purity of any relationship, human or divine. It has the sweetness of all forms of love without their contamination. In parental love there is a compulsion of nature; and in all other forms of human love there is some selfish compulsion—but not in true friendship. When you speak of a sibling and say, "He is my brother," that means he is born of the same parents and you have to love him as such. But when you say of another, "He is my friend," that means you offer to him your love that is pure and unconditional—that you have freely chosen to give your love to him.

A friend may be like a father or a mother to us, or a faithful confidant and supporter. In all human relations God has tried to express His love for us. So look to Him as your Divine Friend, the one you freely choose to love unconditionally and who loves you eternally. Such was the relationship between the devotee Arjuna and his intimate Divine Friend Lord Shri Krishna, Supreme Lord in whom Arjuna saw the Infinite incarnate. Through his devout, worshipful friendship, he received enlightenment and liberation from the Supreme Lord as his Divine Friend Shri Krishna.

In the friendship relationship with God, there is both devotion and love: the reverence of worship and the consummation of union. Love is complete surrender.

Devotion says "I adore YOU"; love says "Oh My Lord You and I are One."

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