Friendship is a higher phenomenon. It is pure love; it has nothing to do with your biology. Love – ordinary love – can be explained through biology, but friendship cannot be explained. It is a mystery. Friendship is like fragrance; love is gross, because of its sexuality, because of its origins. It is a little heavy. It functions under the law of gravitation: it goes on falling downwards, it has no wings. Friendship has wings. It is nonbiological; it makes you really human, it helps you to transcend your animality.
Buddha praises friendship, friendliness, very highly. He has even chosen that when he comes back again his name will be Maitreya – the friend. He must have loved the word very much. I don’t think he will come again or anybody ever comes again. God never makes the same mistake again, remember! Once is more than enough, twice will be too much. But he must have loved the word so much that he says, “Next time, if I am at all going to come, my name is going to be Maitreya – the friend.” The word contains his whole philosophy.
He says: to have friends…is sweet.
Why is it sweet? – because with friends your relationship is not physiological, it is not even psychological; it is a spiritual communion. With friends you can sit in silence. When you are with your lover you can’t sit in silence; silence looks awkward. The woman will think, “Why are you silent? Are you angry or something?” And if she is silent you will think something is wrong – she is sulking. Why is she so silent? Silence becomes heavy, a burden; it has to be removed.
So people go on talking, whether it is needed or not. They go on talking about anything.
Mulla Nasruddin was coming from his village to see me in his bullock cart, with his dog. It was too hot, a summer afternoon, and suddenly he was surprised that the dog said, “It is too hot.”
He looked around; there was nobody, just his dog. He said to the oxen, “Have you heard? Have you heard what has happened?”
And the oxen said, “Yes, he is just like anybody else – always talking about the weather and doing nothing.”
If people have nothing else to talk about they talk about the weather. Anything will do, just go on talking. It keeps you, in a way, connected. In fact, it keeps you disconnected. It is not a bridge; rarely it is a bridge. It is a bridge only between a master and a disciple; otherwise it is not a bridge. When the master speaks out of his silence and the disciple listens out of his silence, it is a bridge. Otherwise it is a wall, a China Wall.