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When a living being gains the feeling of friendship he also attains purity of volition and becomes fearless.
Medyati snihyatīti mitram, tasyabhāvah samastasattvavişayaḥ snehapariņāmo maitri Il
- Yogaśāstra Svo. Viva. 4.117.
Anyone who is affectionate is a friend. A feeling of affection for all the living beings is (universal) friendship.
Anyone who has guileless affection is a friend and the friend's feeling of affection for all the living beings is called friendship. Friendship is one of the dimensions of non-violence preached by Bhagvān Mahāvīra. The Uttarā-dhyayana sūtra and the Āvasyaka sūtra urge the faithful to have friendship for all the living beings and say that anyone who is friendly purifies his feelings and becomes fearless. A friendly being is himself fearless and he conveys this feeling of fearlessness to all those that come in his contact. Without the feeling of friendship there can be neither a gift of fearlessness nor a feeling of cooperation. Friendship is characterised by cooperation with the friend.
When there is a feeling of friendliness in the heart, it becomes immersed in love and where there is love, there is happiness. Such a heart feels ever fresh and remains free from desire, attachment, aversion, delusion, etc.
In friendship there is love but no attachment. Attachment appears only where there is some expectation and a desire to get pleasure from the others whereas in love the feeling is that of sharing our own pleasure with others. In friendship the feeling is to mitigate the pain and to benefit and to increase the pleasure of the friend even at the cost of one's own pleasure. A friend remains ever ready to take any troubles and relinquish own pleasure so that his friend may remain free from trouble and be happy and even then he does not expect anything in return from the friend. In friendship there is selfless forsaking, which is dharma and devotion. Thus, friendship is a living example of dharma and devotion.
Positive Non-Violence
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