Osho - The Fear of Intimacy

Osho,
Of my many fears, the one of which I am most aware is that of intimacy. I amlike a hit and run driver in my relationships with people. Could you speak tome of my fear of intimacy?

Everybody is afraid of intimacy. It is another thing whether youare aware of it or not. Intimacy means exposing yourself before a stranger. Weare 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 allyour defenses; only then, intimacy is possible. And the fear is that if youdrop all your defenses, all your masks, who knows what the stranger is going todo with you?

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

Everybody is afraid of intimacy.

The problem becomes more complicated because everybody wantsintimacy. Everybody wants intimacy because otherwise you are alone in thisuniverse without a friend, without a lover, without anybody you can trust,without anybody to whom you can open all your wounds. And the wounds cannotheal unless they are open. The more you hide them, the more dangerous theybecome. They can become cancerous.

Intimacy is an essential need on the one hand, so everybody longsfor it. But he wants the other person to be intimate, so that the otherperson drops his defenses, becomes vulnerable, opens all his wounds, drops allhis 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 intimatewith, 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 andsincerity, open and both need intimacy.

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

And you will have to take the initiative.

But if you dont have any repressions, any inhibitions, you donthave any wounds either. If you have lived a simple, natural life, there will beno fear of intimacy, but tremendous joy of two flames coming so close thatthey become almost one flame. And the meeting is tremendously gratifying,satisfying, fulfilling. But before you can attempt intimacy, you have to cleanyour house completely.

Only a man of meditation can allow intimacy to happen. He hasnothing to hide. All that he was afraid somebody might come to know, he himselfhas dropped. He has only silence and a loving heart.

You have to accept yourself in your totality if you cannotaccept yourself in your totality, how can you expect somebody else to acceptyou? And you have been condemned by everybody, and you have learned only onething: self-condemnation.

You go on hiding it. It is not something beautiful to show toothers, you know ugly things are hidden in you; you know evil things are hiddenin you; you know animality is hidden in you. Unless you transform your attitudeand accept yourself as one of the animals in existence The word animalis not bad. It simply means alive; it comes from anima. Whoever is aliveis an animal.

But man has been taught, You are not animals, animals are farbelow you. You are human beings. You have been given a false superiority. Thetruth is, existence does not believe in the superior and the inferior. Toexistence, everything is equal the trees, the birds, the animals, the humanbeings. In existence, everything is absolutely accepted as it is; there is nocondemnation.

If you accept your sexuality without any conditions, if youaccept that man and every being in the world is fragile Life is a very thinthread which can break down any moment. Once this is accepted, and you dropfalse egos of being Alexander the Great, Mohammed Ali the thrice great ifyou simply understand that everybody is beautiful in his ordinariness andeveryone has weaknesses they are part of human nature because you are notmade of steel.

You are made of a very fragile body. The span of your life isbetween ninety-eight degrees temperature and one hundred and ten degreestemperature: 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 sameapplies to a thousand and one things in you.

One of your most basic needs is to be needed. But nobody wants toaccept that It is my basic need to be needed, to be loved, to be accepted. Weare living in such pretensions, such hypocrisies that is the reason whyintimacy creates fear.

You are not what you appear to be. Your appearance is false. Youmay appear to be a saint but deep down you are still a weak human being withall the desires and all the longings.

The first step is to accept yourself in your totality, in spiteof all your traditions, which have driven the whole of humanity insane. Onceyou have accepted yourself as you are, the fear of intimacy will disappear. Youcannot lose respect, you cannot lose your greatness, you cannot lose your ego.You cannot lose your piousness, you cannot lose your saintliness you have droppedall that yourself. You are just like a small child, utterly innocent. You canopen yourself, because inside you are not filled with ugly repressions whichhave 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 toalso be intimate. Your openness will help the other person also to be open toyou. Your unpretentious simplicity will allow the other also to enjoysimplicity, innocence, trust, love, openness.

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

But we are fragile beings the most fragile in the wholeexistence. The human child is the most fragile child of all the animals. Thechildren of other animals can survive without the mother, without the father,without a family. But the human child will die immediately. So this frailty isnot something to be condemned, it is the highest expression of consciousness. Aroseflower is going to be fragile; it is not a stone. And there is no need tofeel bad about it, that you are a roseflower and not a stone.

Only when two persons become intimate are they no longerstrangers. And it is a beautiful experience to find that not only you are fullof weaknesses but the other, too. Perhaps everybody is full of weaknesses.