Tips by Pillay for Friendship

• ‘Friendship is one’s rarest quality. If you know about one’s friends, you can judge what type of person he is. Instead of having some crores of rupees you can have a vast circle of good friend’s.
• ‘Among your friends none should think he alone is great.We should not show off ourselves as great. We should not talk to our friends who may be close or unfamiliar to us, even remotely suggesting to them that they know nothing. We should not consider them ignorant. If you are conceited, others will keep themselves at a distance from you saying, ‘he will talk thinking that only he knows everything.’
• Real freindship is friendship which expects no reward.
• We should salute such friendship and should be ever ready to help unselfish friends who move with others jus for the sake of friendship.
• Through telephone, video conferencing and contact through internet help us exchange friendship.
• The greatest method of exchanging friendship is the oldest method of writing letters to our friends.
• In this context, I should like to make a particular mention of Thiru. Ravi Tamizhvanan, an extraordinary person, who knows well the art of developing friendship through letters full of love and kindness.
• Whenever you get an opportunity to talk to a person, you should talk to him about the good he did. This is respecting friendship. By such intimate and open talk you strengthen your friendship.
• You should correct your friend if he is wrong. But even at the first chance you should not bluntly tell your friend that he is wrong thinking that you do him something good. Because your friend does something as he thinks it is right.
• When we feel what a friend does is not correct we should make him understand that he is wrong and this is our responsibility as a true friend.
• Friendship is a fine instrument with which we can lead our friends who are in the wrong to a good path. We should subtly touch upon their wrongs in each of our meetings with them. We should not advise our friends often and insist upon them to accept a particular viewpoint as this will affect our friendship with them.
• You should understand the mentality of your friends and move with them developing your friendship day by day. You should not bore a person who goes hastily somewhere with nonsensical talk. When he sees you another time, he will take to his heels. If you talk of sad things to your friends, whenever you meet them, they may not relish your talk.
• When you go to your friend to get back the money you lent him, or when you go to him to get some loan from him, you should not be blunt in your talk. ‘Please think and do’ or ‘please do it if it is possible for you’ – these are the expressions we should use with our friends. ‘Is it possible for you?’ ‘Is it not possible for you?’ – these questions sound rough and show your harshness. If you talk to him roughly and if he also talks roughly then your relationship with him may have a setback. You should create in your friend the frame of self – examination and self – analysis.
• Studying the location and circumstance we should know how to develop our friendship with others. Your friend is the son of his mother, the husband of his wife or the father of his children. If he runs an organisation he may be the head of several employees. Your intimacy with him may be so deep that you may have the right to ask him ‘come here’, ‘go there.’ This intimacy with him shoud be evident only when you are alone wih him. When he is in the presence of many of his employees you should not take the liberty of addressing him as you like. You should know your limits. If you talk to him respectfully, ‘sir, please come,’ ‘sir,’ please go,’ in others’ presence, you show that you are cultured and maintain your dignity. This habit is commendable.
• Two merchants can bargain when they hold discussion. But they should not go against commercial ethics. when a friend is in dire straits and when his economy is at a low ebb, you shluld not try to grab something from him, for that will mean exploiting him, taking advantage of his economic weakness. This is sheer injustice to loyal friendship.
• Generally, friends who are not well off say they would like to get some money as loan from someone. Then there may come a stage when they may not be able to repay the loan. It is not advisable to give a substantial amount as loan to one who is in economic crisis. You can give him a certain amount saying. ‘This is not given as a loan. I can give you only this amount.’ Your help should be done wholeheartedly.
• Do not cheat anyone at any time. You would have cheated your friend or your boss for Rs.50/- That amount may be insignificant to him. But what irks him, what effects him is the title given to him by you, the title of ‘an innocent.’If it is possible for you, you give others good titles. Not the title cited above.
• Lyhing is a habit with some and the vice of lyhing grows at an enormous pace. Can we account for the cause of decrease of the noble, Godly virtue of gratefulness? We should have it fixed in mind that lying to a loyal friend is the greatest disservice to friendship, is the death – knell to friendship. Even in the most intricate, delicate circumstances, lying should be avoided to keep the spirit of friendship aglow and alive. Like a poison, a lie slowly and steadily kills friendship.
• We should have it fixed in mind that we should never, however curious we may be, pry into other’s private affairs, for privacy is to be guarded like a rare treasure. Prying into another’s secret world is an offence unpardonable, an offence which spotlights the vilest nature of man. If others out of regard and respect for their friendship with us ask us for our advice, advice should be given, advise well – considered and most appropriate, and the secrecy of others’ consultation should be guarded with the utmost vigilance. If we feel we are incapable of advising our friend, we shoud seek the appropriate person who can with professional skill advise our friend. Like a half – baked doctor we should not by our ill – considered advice to our friend lead him to a wrong path and land him in trouble.
• Never pass on your feeling of insult or sorrow resulting from your friend’s misbehaviour to others. We know not the relationship between your friend and the man to whom you confess your feeling of insult, your feeling of sorrow. Enlarging on what you told him, adding colour to what you said, he may tell others your feeling of sorrow spoiling your image. Thereby the friendship between you and your friend further deteriorates paving the way for a fissure, even a deep fissure.
• The wife without being able to express her displeasure or anger against her husband may throw about the vessels in the house and create a din and bustle, may beat up her child and make it cry. Why should father be the cause of mother’s harsh treatment of the child?
• It is man’s nature to commit wrong. Correcting oneself, admitting that one is wrong shows that one is on the royal path to a noble living. You can admit your wrong nobly saying ‘sorry’ and it is but the height of hypocrisy to utter a series of lies to hide your fault. This tendency of escaping from accusations of guilt by blatant lying is increasing and this is indeed sad. This tendency should be arrested to prevent moral degradation in society.
• Indians are generally considered absent-minded. But we have powerful memory. Wrongs are always detected, if not today at least tomorrow. If your friend detects your fault, your wrongdoing, you lose his friendship.
• You should not think that only if your friend visits you, you should visit him. You should be the first to visit him and his family. We should precede others in expressing our friendship. This is the grammar and substance of friendship.
• There is a close connection between friendship and gift. The art of developing friendship is a rare art indeed. Gift does not necessarily mean money or an article wrapped in a colourful, bright paper. A kiss on a child’s cheek is a gift, your greeting to your wife is a gift of affection. A letter of greetings to a friend is a gift. The word gift cannot be defined exactly. Any small article of affection given to others is a gift indeed.