On Friendship

by Reza Ganjavi

When you're friends with yourself you can be friends with others. To be friendly within yourself means to not have any inner fights, inner conflicts. An inner fight is usually a conflict between what you are and what you think you should be. Or the way you were and the way you think you should have been. This conflict results in loss of energy and unhappiness. What is the solution? I think the key is to see what you are or what you were, and really look at it without saying it was good or bad or this and that judgment - just to look, quietly. It's easiest to look while something is happening - so, pay attention during daily life to what you think and feel. That awareness, is also called "self-knowledge" although "knowledge" is not the appropriate word as it is rooted in the known (John Lennon in "All You Need Is Love" wrote: "Nothing you can know that isn't known...").

Change can come naturally as a result of this awareness - of, for example, an inner conflict. This awareness is its own action. It's not as though first you see then you think of what to do - seeing the problem clearly reveals the solution immediately. This leads to the refinement of life and the elimination of that which causes conflict. And when you're not broken up inwardly, when you are "friendly" within, you have a lot of energy - you have peace - and then you'll be friendly with the world around and outside you - and you contribute to world peace - however little that contribution might be - that's all you can do.