INTIMACY

INTIMACY

   3:13 PM       shrikant rathod

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INTIMACY :

Everybody is afraid of intimacy. It is another thing whether you are aware of it or not. Intimacy means exposing yourself before a stranger. We are all strangers -- nobody knows anybody. We are even strangers to ourselves, because we don't know who we are.

Intimacy brings you close to a stranger. You have to drop all your defenses; only then, intimacy is possible. And the fear is that if you drop all your defenses, all your masks, who knows what the stranger is going to do with you?

We are all hiding a thousand and one things -- not only from others but from ourselves -- because we have been brought up by a sick humanity with all kinds of repressions, inhibitions, taboos. And the fear is that with somebody who is a stranger -- and it does not matter, you may have lived with the person for thirty years, forty years; the strangeness never disappears -- it feels safer to keep a little defense, a little distance, because somebody can take advantage of your weaknesses, of your frailties, of your vulnerability.

Everybody is afraid of intimacy.

The problem becomes more complicated because everybody wants intimacy. Everybody wants intimacy because otherwise you are alone in this universe -- without a friend, without a lover, without anybody you can trust, without anybody to whom you can open all your wounds. And the wounds cannot heal unless they are open. The more you hide them, the more dangerous they become. They can become cancerous.

Intimacy is an essential need on the one hand, so everybody longs for it. But he wants the other person to be intimate, so that the other person drops his defenses, becomes vulnerable, opens all his wounds, drops all his masks and false personality, stands naked as he is. And on the other hand, everybody is afraid of intimacy -- with the other person you want to be intimate with, you are not dropping your defenses.

This is one of the conflicts between friends, between lovers: nobody wants to drop his defenses and nobody wants to come in utter nudity and sincerity, open -- and both need intimacy.

Unless you drop all your repressions, inhibitions -- which are the gifts of your religions, your cultures, your societies, your parents, your education -- you will never be able to be intimate with someone.

And you will have to take the initiative.

But if you don't have any repressions, any inhibitions, you don't have any wounds either. If you have lived a simple, natural life, there will be no fear of intimacy, but tremendous joy -- of two flames coming so close that they become almost one flame. And the meeting is tremendously gratifying, satisfying, fulfilling. But before you can attempt intimacy, you have to clean your house completely.

Only a man of meditation can allow intimacy to happen. He has nothing to hide. All that was making him afraid that somebody may know, he himself has dropped. He has only a silence and a loving heart.

You have to accept yourself in your totality -- if you cannot accept yourself in your totality, how can you expect somebody else to accept you? And you have been condemned by everybody, and you have learned only one thing: self-condemnation. You are filled with ugly repressions which have become perversions.

You can say everything that you feel authentically and sincerely. And if you are ready to be intimate, you will encourage the other person also to be intimate. Your openness will help the other person also to be open to you. Your unpretentious simplicity will allow the other also to enjoy simplicity, innocence, trust, love, openness.

You are encaged with stupid concepts, and the fear is, if you become very intimate with somebody, he will become aware of it.

But we are fragile beings -- the most fragile in the whole existence. The human child is the most fragile child of all the animals. The children of other animals can survive without the mother, without the father, without a family. But the human child will die immediately. So this frailty is not something to be condemned -- it is the highest expression of consciousness.

Intimacy simply means that the doors of the heart are open for you, you are welcome to come in and be a guest. But that is possible only if you have a heart which is not stinking with repressed sexuality, which is not boiling with all kinds of perversions, which is natural -- as natural as trees, as innocent as children. Then there is no fear of intimacy.

That's what I am trying to do: to help you unburden your unconscious, unburden your mind, to become ordinary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be just simple and ordinary.

Then you can have as many intimate friends, as many intimate relationships as possible, because you are not afraid of anything. You become an open book -- anybody can read. There is nothing to hide.You have so many faces. Inside, you think one thing; outside, you express something else.

You are not one, organic whole.

Relax and destroy the split that society has created in you. Say only that which you mean.

Act according to your own spontaneity, never bothering about consequences. It is a small life and it should not be spoiled in thinking about consequences here and hereafter.

One should live totally, intensely, joyously and just like an open book, available for anybody to read it.By intimacy, by love, by opening yourself to many people, you become richer. And if you can live in deep love, in deep friendship, in deep intimacy, with many people, you have lived rightly, and wherever you happen to be... you have learned the art; you will be living there, too, happily. 

If you are simple, loving, open, intimate, you create a paradise around you. If you are closed, constantly on the defensive, always worried that somebody may come to know your thoughts, your dreams, your perversions -- you are living in hell.

Hell is within you and so is paradise.

You will be ready, without any fear but with great joy, to be intimate. And without intimacy, you are alone here amongst strangers. With intimacy you are surrounded by friends, by people who love you. Intimacy is a great experience. One should not miss it.

But before you can become unafraid of intimacy, you have to be totally clean of all the garbage that religions have been pouring into you, all the crap that for centuries has been handed over to you. Be finished with it all, and live a life of peace, silence, joy, song and dance. And you will transform... wherever you are, the place will become paradise.

Osho, 

The Hidden Splendor