Śrīla Bhakti Sundar Govinda Dev-Goswāmī Mahārāj describes how we can be true followers of His Divine Grace.
Whenever I come to visit another country, I must give an explanation to immigration. They ask me, “Where are you going? Where are you staying?” It is natural that they will ask about these things. I always give the same answer: “I am going to meet with my friends and their families.”
The word ‘friend’ in Bengali and Sanskrit, bāndhava, is a very heavy word. The meaning is very heavy.
utsave vyasane prāpte durbhikṣe śatru-saṅkaṭe
rāja-dvāre śmaśāne cha yas tiṣṭhati sa bāndhavaḥ
(Chāṇakhya Niti: 12)
Who is a real friend? A real friend is always with me during festival time and also when I am in a situation of much trouble. When a food crisis occurs in my family, a real friend will come forward to help me. When a political revolution occurs in the country, a real friend will be with me, and when my body goes for cremation, a real friend will stand by me.
A friend must have this mentality. When I say that you are all my friends, you must consider my meaning to be like that. I try to do good for you all, as best as possible by me, and I ask that you all try to accept that and behave like that with me.
Actually, we are all coming from Lord Kṛṣṇa’s power, and He is the creator of all the universes, not only the jīva-souls. So, when our father is the same, then we are all friends, brothers, and very close relatives.
The demoniac and illusory mentality has captured the whole world due to māyā. Through that, we are sometimes becoming enemies, sometimes becoming friends, sometimes becoming relatives, sometimes becoming this, that, and so on. But Prahlād Mahārāj said in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam to Hiraṇyakaśipu, his father, “You are differentiating between me, yourself, and others, but I do not see like that. I see that Kṛṣṇa is living everywhere and Kṛṣṇa is the friend of everyone. The tendency to analyse in a differential, inimical way comes from māyā.”
Prahlād Mahārāj says in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam,
sa yadānuvrataḥ puṁsāṁ paśu-buddhir vibhidyate
anya eṣa tathānyo ’ham iti bheda-gatāsatī
(7.5.12)
When Kṛṣṇa mercifully gives His divine rays of mercy upon us, we will understand what is what.
Source
Spoken in Italy, August 2000, during His Divine Grace’s 16th World Tour.