In plain words
What we call friendship is this: heart joined to heart is itself the bond of friendship. In difficulties, in losses, in sorrows, even at all times and in every state, to stand by one another, to help one another and to shape one another for the good: sacred friendship is what brings about such a state. Here is a small example of it. Suppose you have a friend. Because that friend has done something he should not have done, many people lay hold of him and set about blaming him. By this principle of friendship, you go there to protect that friend, cover up his faults a little, and set about defying, a little, those who fell upon him. Is this the mark of friendship? So only when you rebuke the friend who set about such injustice, and find the right way to lead him into the path of Satya, does this give friendship its true meaning. But if, thinking, ‘He is my friend, isn't he?’, you set about covering up his faults, you become the one who has ruined your own friend. To lead your friend onto the good path and to set about earning a good name for him: that alone is the natural meaning of friendship. The one who wants his friend to be pure gives that friend's faults a fitting punishment, and we stand ready to follow what is good in him, and so lift one another up: this alone is the natural dharma of friendship. How does friendship stand today? If ten rupees can be seen in a Terylene bush-coat, we go up saying, ‘Hello, hello.’ If not even a little shows here, off we go saying, ‘good bye good bye.’ So, to take someone for a friend on account of money: this is not what matters. It is most necessary to set about this friendship taking the wealth of the heart as the ground and keeping only the sacred principle of Prema as the goal. With just this in view, the gopīs, thinking of the Paramātma Himself as a friend, thinking of the Paramātma Himself as a mother,
You alone are mother and father, You alone are teacher and God, You alone are my friend, You alone, truly, are my Lord and my refuge, O Kṛṣṇa!