Osho - Intimacy (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living)

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Contents

Foreword

Everybody is afraid of intimacyit is another thing whether you are aware of it or not. Intimacy means exposing yourself before a strangerand we are all strangers; nobody knows anybody. We are even strangers to ourselves because we dont know who we are.

Intimacy brings you close to a stranger. You have to drop all your defenses; only then is intimacy possible. And the fear is that if you drop all your defenses, all your masks, who knows what the stranger will 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 strangerand it does not matter, you may have lived with the person for thirty years, forty years; the strangeness never disappearsit feels safer to keep a little defense, a little distance, because somebody can take advantage of your weaknesses, of your frailties, of your vulnerability.

You have to drop all your defenses, only then is intimacy possible. We are all hiding a thousand and one things, not only from others but from ourselves.

Everybody is afraid of intimacy.

The problem becomes more complicated because everybody wants intimacy. Everybody wants intimacy because otherwise you are alone in this universewithout 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. You want 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 intimacyyou want to be intimate with the other person, but 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, openyet both need intimacy.

Unless you drop all your repressions and inhibitionswhich are the gifts of your religions, your cultures, your societies, your parents, your educationyou will never be able to be intimate with someone. And you will have to take the initiative.

But if you dont have any repressions or inhibitions, then you dont have any wounds, either. If you have lived a simple, natural life, there will be no fear of intimacy, only the 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. But man has been taught, You are not animals; animals are far below you. You are human beings. You have been given a false superiority. The truth is, existence does not believe in the superior and the inferior. To existence, everything is equal: the trees, the birds, the animals, the human beings. In existence, everything is absolutely accepted as it is; there is no condemnation.

The truth is, existence does not believe in the superior and the inferior. In existence, everything is absolutely accepted as it is; there is no condemnation.

If you accept your sexuality without any conditions, if you accept that man and every being in the world is fragile, that life is a very thin thread that can break down any moment Once this is accepted, and you drop false egosof being Alexander the Great, Muhammad Ali the thrice-greatyou simply understand that everybody is beautiful in his ordinariness and everyone has weaknesses; they are part of human nature because you are not made of steel. You are made of a very fragile body. The span of your life is between ninety-eight degrees and one hundred ten degrees, just twelve degrees of temperature is your whole span of life. Fall below it and you are dead; go beyond it and you are dead. And the same applies to a thousand and one things in you. One of your most basic needs is to be needed. But nobody wants to accept that it is my basic need to be needed, to be loved, to be accepted.

We are living in such pretensions, such hypocrisiesthat is why intimacy creates fear. You are not what you appear to be. Your appearance is false. You may appear to be a saint, but deep down you are still a weak human being with all the desires and all the longings.

The first step is to accept yourself in your totalityin spite of all your traditions, which have driven the whole of humanity insane. Once you have accepted yourself as you are, the fear of intimacy will disappear. You cannot lose respect, you cannot lose your greatness, you cannot lose your ego. You cannot lose your piousness, you cannot lose your saintlinessyou have dropped all that yourself. You are just like a small child, utterly innocent. You can open yourself because inside you are not filled with ugly repressions that 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.

If you are ready to be intimate, you will encourage the other person also to be intimate. 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 that if you become very intimate with somebody, he will become aware of it. But we are fragile beingsthe 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 condemnedit is the highest expression of consciousness. A rose flower is going to be fragile; it is not a stone. And there is no need to feel bad that you are a rose flower and not a stone.

Only when two persons become intimate are they no longer strangers. And it is a beautiful experience to find that not only you are full of weaknesses but the other, tooperhaps everybodyis full of weaknesses. The higher expression of anything becomes weaker. The roots are very strong, but the flower cannot be so strong. Its beauty is because of its not being strong. In the morning it opens its petals to welcome the sun, dances the whole day in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, and by the evening its petals have started falling; it is gone.