• When something inside you grows, it brings new responsibilities, because now you need more meditation, you need more love, you need more joy.
    - Osho

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Intimacy : Intimacy means exposing yourself before a stranger.

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 go on hiding it. It is not something beautiful to show to others, you know ugly things are hidden in you; you know evil things are hidden in you; you know animality is hidden in you. Unless you transform your attitude and accept yourself as one of the animals in existence… The word “animal” is not bad. It simply means alive; it comes from anima. Whoever is alive, is an animal. [....]

 

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.

 

-Osho, “The Hidden Splendor, #4, Q1”

 

 

 

 

When two lovers become really intimate, when they don't have any secrets from each other, when they are really open to each other, when they are not afraid of each other and not hiding anything from each other... that is intimacy. When they can say each and everything without any fear that the other will be offended or hurt.... If the lover thinks the other will be offended, then the intimacy is not yet enough. Then it is a kind of arrangement which can be broken by anything. But when two lovers start feeling that there is nothing to hide and everything can be said, and the trust has come to such a depth, where even if you don't say it the other is going to know, then they start becoming one. Then they start becoming more like brother and sister.

 

-Osho, "The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, #3"

 

 

 

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Osho Dictionary

A Spiritual Dictionary for the Here and Now

List of Articles
No. Category Subject
1031 A Absolute : A man of truth is always relative.
1030 A Abstinence : You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality.
1029 A Abstractions : Because you can't love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself. Avoid abstractions.
1028 A Absurd : The absurd is nothing but another name of God
1027 A Absurdity : Collect as many absurdities in your life as possible.
1026 A Accept yourself : Accept yourself as you are, and accept totally, unconditionally. That is the way God wants you to be
1025 A Accept Yourself : This is the first step of Unio Mystica: be one with yourself.
1024 A Acceptance : Accepting is another name for Let Go
1023 A Acceptance : If somebody hits you, bow down your head, accept it with gratitude.
1022 A Accidental : Become a little more conscious. See what is happening.
1021 A Accidents : Consciousness can be, and without content. So that accident was a blessing.
1020 A Accidents : life goes ahead and your mind is past-oriented
1019 A Acharya : He knows exactly what he’s teaching, but not on his own authority.
1018 A Act : You will create a chain of reactions and you will get into karma.
1017 A Acting : The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into an acting.
1016 A Action : You have to use action to attain non-action.
1015 A Action and Activity : Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response
1014 A Active Meditation : All traditional methods have become irrelevant.
1013 A Activity : Action is not activity; activity is not action.
1012 A Activity : Activity has utility, action is pure joy, pure beauty.
1011 A Acupuncture : Acupuncture deals with the cause. Never deal with the effect
1010 A Adam's Apple : Adam became knowledgeable, hence the fall. So knowledge is the fall.
1009 A Adam's Apple : I am against all kinds of enforced things.
1008 A Admiration : One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself.
1007 A Adultery : The real meaning of adultery is making love while you are not in love.
1006 A Advaita : Advaita means not two
1005 A Advaita : Existence Is Advaita
1004 A Advertising : It hypnotized you.
1003 A Advice : Listen, but don’t follow.
1002 A Ageing (Aging) : You are just pure consciousness
1001 A Aging : Change beautifies everything.
1000 A Ah : Ah, this cake is delicious
999 A AIDS : Perversion requires the basic condition that you are fed up with changing women, you want something new.
998 A Alchemy : How to change the negative into the positive
997 A Alcohol : Nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.
996 A Alertness : If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware
995 A Alienation : He is an uprooted tree. He has forgotten how to relate with existence
994 A Alone : The person who is not able to be alone cannot be together with somebody, because he has no individuality.
993 A Aloneness : Rejoicing in Your Own Aloneness
992 A Aloneness : We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone
991 A Ambition : Nothing kills love more than Ambitiousness
990 A Ambition : The result of an inferiority complex
989 A Ambition : The root cause
988 A Amen : It simply means "Yes, Lord, yes. Let thy will be done.
987 A Analysis : The beauty is something more, hence in analysis it disappears.
986 A Androgyny : Where your man and woman inside meet and mingle and disappear into each other.
985 A Angels : You are simply creating belief systems to cling to.
984 A Anger : Anger is just a mental vomit.
983 A Anger : If anger rages within, shout, cry, jump, talk, babble, do whatever you please
982 A Anguish : Anguish is, in short, the quest of who you are.
981 A Anguish : God is not responsible for your stupidity. It is your own work.
980 A Anguish : The anguish of not knowing oneself
979 A Answer : To Be Questionless is the Answer
978 A Anti Christ : The people who established Christianity, they are the Antichrist.
977 A Apology : We don't try to reform ourselves, we only try to reform our image.
976 A Art : If it leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
975 A Art : To be a painter, you have to drop the ego
974 A Art, Objective : Objective art means something that helps you to become centered
973 A Asleep : Man is asleep – man lives in a deep slumber
972 A Assertion (Assertive) : Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.
971 A Astrology : Astrology is an investigation into the possibility that whatever is happening anywhere in the universe also affects man.
970 A Astrology : The Science of Cosmic Oneness
969 A Atheism : Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers.
968 A Attachment : Attachment means clinging to something, wanting it the way it is forever.
967 A Attention : If you pay much attention to suffering, you help it to grow. If you pay much attention to happiness, you help it to grow.
966 A Aum : The primordial sound of which the whole universe consists
965 A Aum : The symbol of the seventh body
964 A Austerity : Austerity does not mean torture; austerity means a simple life, an austere life.
963 A Authenticity : To be authentic means to be true to oneself.
962 A Authoritative : Authoritarian People are suffering from Inferiority Complex
961 A Autohypnosis : You create illnesses! You believe in them.
960 A Average : You will drop your averageness. It is just forced on you.
959 A Avoidance : The harder you try to avoid it, the more focused you become on it.
958 A Awareness : The Seed of Godliness in You
957 B Babies : All babies are beautiful, but all grown-ups are not beautiful.
956 B Bachelorhood : she was also looking for a perfect husband!
955 B Baggage : On the highest peaks, one has to be weightless.
954 B Balance : Witnessing brings balance.
953 B Bardo : Between These Two Dreams
952 B Beauty : The deeper you become, the more beautiful you are.
951 B Beggars : The meeting of a world conqueror with a beggar
950 B Beginners : The Zen person always keeps the beginner's mind
949 B Behaviorism : He lives in such cowardly ways, he is so afraid of anything new.
948 B Belief : The believer is not a seeker.
947 B Betrayal : There is only one betrayal: and that is to betray one's own life.
946 B Bibles : People become interested only when they are almost in their graves.
945 B Biography : After Self-Knowledge there Is No Autobiography
944 B Birthdays : One is never born and never dies; both are illusions.
943 B Bitterness : We are bitter because we are not what we should be.
942 B Black hole : Black hole is like Buddha’s concept of emptiness
941 B Blame : The whole responsibility is yours, don't blame anybody
940 B Blindness : Don't carry the books
939 B Bliss : Bliss needs great courage
938 B Bliss : Blissfulness is our birthright
937 B Body : The body has a great wisdom in it.
936 B Boiling Point : They don't have intensity. They live only so-so, lukewarm
935 B Books : Beware of knowledge. It is so cheap to become knowledgeable.
934 B Boredom : A Buddha is not bored, A Jesus is not bored
933 B Boredom : Boredom comes out of insensitivity.
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