Today I would like to write again about friends and the question whom you call your friends.

Are your neighbours and colleagues your friends?

Now you may ask why I have put neighbours and colleagues in one category of people. It is actually simple: you meet your neighbours and colleagues nearly daily. You have to be in touch with them. Your neighbours live just next door, sometimes even in the same building. On the way in and out you meet. Your colleagues work next door, sometimes even in the same office. There are days when you get in touch more closely with them and days when you do not even see them. For both groups it is up to you how you want to make your relationship.

Of all the people living close to you or working with you, there are usually some whom you like and some whom you cannot really connect with. Being neighbours or colleagues is surely not a guarantee for being friends. It is wonderful if you can make a friendship with them just in the same way as it can be horrible when you do not get along. We all know the stories of neighbours annoying each other intentionally by playing loud music or mowing the lawn when others want to sleep or by fighting about whose turn it is to clean the staircase or the driveway. We also all have heard about nasty colleagues who tell the boss about private phone calls from the company phone and competitions about who is going to be promoted.

As the situation is, you have to meet and have to work or live with each other. With some people you may just have a friendly or neutral relationship but being friends with your neighbours or colleagues can indeed make many things easier. When shops are closed you can borrow salt, flour or sugar from your neighbours and you can ask your colleagues to change shifts with you when you urgently need a day off for a certain occasion. Most of all, if your neighbours and colleagues are your friends, you spend more time of your day surrounded by people whom you love. This alone makes a big change in the quality of living!

Yesterday evening we got to know that the water of the Yamuna has entered the market of Vrindavan and thus the area where I grew up. In the morning Yashendu went to take some more pictures and make another film clip to show you the situation. After that he went down the other side and found that if you walk the road towards the Yamuna, the water is now about 400 meter away from the Ashram. We are not worried as the Ashrams still lies quite a bit higher but we were still surprised to see how far the water has come.

See for yourself in the video below or in updated pictures of the flood.