Friendship Quotes by Paramhansa Yogananda

The following quotes on friendship are from the book “How to Love and Be Loved” by Paramhansa Yogananda 

Friendship is God’s love shining through the eyes of your loved ones, calling you home to drink His nectar of all selfishness-dissolving unity. Friendship is God’s trumpet call, bidding the soul to destroy the partitions that separate it from other souls and from Him. True friendship unites two souls so completely that they reflect the unity of Spirit.

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When true friendship exists between two souls and they seek spiritual love and God’s love together, when their only wish is to be of service to each other, their friendship produces the flame of Spirit. Through perfected divine friendship, mutually seeking spiritual perfection, you will find the one Great Friend.

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When perfect friendship exists, either between two hearts or within a group of hearts in a spiritual organization, such friendship perfects each individual.

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In the heart purified by friendship, one beholds an open door of unity through which one should invite other souls to enter- those who love him as well as those who love him not. When divine friendship reigns supreme in the temple of your heart, your soul will merge with the vast Cosmic Soul, leaving far behind the confining bonds which separated it from all of God’s creation.

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Be a cosmic friend, imbued with kindness and affection for all of God’s creation, scattering love everywhere.

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The greater the mutual service, the deeper the friendship.

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Human love and friendship have their basis in service on the physical, mental, or business plane. They are short-lived and conditional. Divine love has its foundation in service on the spiritual and intuitional planes, and is unconditional and eternal.

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Far better to conquer by love the heart of a person who hates you than to vanquish such a one by other means.

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When the ego begins, through practical sympathy, to feel itself in other bodies, it begins to regain its forgotten omnipresence.

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God’s effort to unite strife-torn humanity manifests itself within your heart as the friendship instinct.

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The door of my friendliness will ever be open equally for those brothers who hate me and for those who love me.

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Some souls at sight become our own;

Others, whom oft we meet, forever remain unknown.

And yet, in whispers Dame Wisdom says:

“To love your own and the unknown alike are Heaven’s ways.”

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Friendship is the universal spiritual attraction that unites souls in the bond of divine love. The Spirit was One. By the law of duality it became two- positive and negative. Then, by the law of infinity applied to the law of relativity it became many. Now the One in the many is endeavoring to unite the many and make them one. This effort of the Spirit, to unify many souls into the One, works through our emotions, intelligence, and intuition, and finds expression through friendship.

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Friendship is a manifestation of God’s love for you, expressed through your friends, who constitute the most valuable possessions a human being can have.

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The wisdom and spiritual understanding by mutual effort can bind two souls by the laws of everlasting divine love.

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Friendship is eternal. If you can form a friendship through which God is awakened in you, that is the greatest of all friendships.

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Your good example will do more to change others than your wishing, your holy wrath, or your words.

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To love our relatives trains us in expanding our consciousness, and helps us practice loving all people as our relatives in God.

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Anyone who fails to inspire confidence in other hearts, who is unable to extend the kingdom of his love and friendliness into other soul territories, cannot hope to expand his consciousness into Cosmic Consciousness.

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Friendship is the purest of all love.

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In pure friendship you will find God.

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When you consider yourself a soul, then you can be a perfect friend. By being true to yourself and a true friend to others, you gain the friendship of God.

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You must be a friend even to your enemy, because if you become an enemy to your enemy you will increase his wrath and make him an even greater enemy. Every person who tries to injure others, first injures himself. You cannot hate others without first poisoning yourself. To hate anyone is against your own interest.

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God’s effort to unite strife-torn humanity manifests itself within your heart as the friendship instinct.

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Fools fight. Friends discuss their differences.

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If you cannot conquer human hearts, you cannot conquer the Cosmic Heart.

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Let your supreme goal be to make others happy in order to gain happiness for yourself.

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The more you improve yourself, the more you will elevate others around you. The happier you become, the happier will be the people around you.

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“Love God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” You will need no other commandments if you follow these two.

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When divine friendship reigns supreme in the temple of your heart, your soul will merge with the vast Cosmic Soul, leaving far behind the confining bonds which separated it from all of God’s animate and inanimate creation.

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The true Self is the manifestation of Spirit within.

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How you behave toward others both reflects your inner consciousness and conditions it.

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Never imagine that you can win God’s love if you can’t win the love of your fellow creatures. As you love Him, so should you love Him in all.

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Banish unkind words from your lips forever, and make your home life safe from trouble.

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Seek your friends of past incarnations in order that you may continue your friendship in this life and perfect it into Divine Friendship. One lifetime is not always sufficient to achieve such perfection.

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Wherever there is a lonely heart or a weeping brother by the wayside, and your heart goes out to that soul, you have expanded your consciousness toward true, infinite Christ consciousness.

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Spiritual marriage means union with God, soul, and spirit. Spiritual marriage means to marry your soul to the eternal love of God. Without God, marriage cannot succeed. The purpose of marriage is to know God, and to be together in God. Unfortunately, this truth has been forgotten.

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True spiritual marriage is union with God, the most beautiful love of all.

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The sun and moon and earth and all things are held together by the bonding force of God’s love.

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Only our love for God is ever fully requited.