by Girirāja Dāsa Brahmacārī (ISKCON-Delhi)

"Friend: One joined to another in intimacy and affection; sympathizer, helper." A friend is very hard to define; therefore, arbitrarily, we refer to The Little Oxford Dictionary, the only dictionary at hand. And utilizing this definition we can seek still further and ask, "Who is our dearmost friend?" And even by this definition, we are in agreement with the verdict of Bhagavad-gita As It Is: Our dearmost friend is Krsna!

Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is our dearmost friend. By Krsna is meant God. Krsna means all-attractive, for how can God be God if He does not have all attractive qualities in full? Krsna is full in the six opulences of wealth, power, fame, beauty, wisdom and renunciation. If someone has a little wealth or if someone is beautiful, he is attractive for that reason. But Krsna is all-attractive because He possesses all attractive qualities in full. We may find someone wealthy, but if we look further we will find someone with more wealth than him. Or we may meet someone who is very learned, but if we look further we will find someone with more knowledge still. But when we get to Krsna, we become at once satisfied and seek no further because no one has more wealth or knowledge than Him. Therefore Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, called Bhagavan, our dearmost friend. He possesses all opulences in full.

Since a bona fide spiritual master is the direct representative of Krsna, he shares in Krsna's qualities of excellence. Thus for the devotees of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada is also our dearmost friend. He is the external representative and the mercy incarnation of Krsna. Practically he is the only authorized source of bona fide information about the Personality of Godhead because he is instructing us according to revealed scriptures how we can revive our eternal relationship with God. By hearing such information from the bona fide spiritual master one can at once become detached from one's inferior engagement with matter and attach oneself to the transcendental loving service of the Lord. In this way one attains God. Therefore we consider the real friend to be he who can direct us to God, the supreme friend and well-wisher for all living entities, not he who merely claims to be our friend and asks us to tell him our problems. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada can direct us to God and is therefore our dearmost friend.

Returning to our definition of a friend, we find that he is one who is joined to another in intimacy. Let us now seek out who is joined to us most intimately, and we shall find-Krsna! Krsna, according to Srila Prabhupada, is "closer to us than our jugular vein." This is confirmed by Krsna Himself in Bhagavad-gita: "I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge, and forgetfulness." (Bg. 15.15) Srila Prabhupada affirms that only Krsna knows the volume of our suffering, and only Krsna knows how nice we are.