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Overview
“Hit-and-run” relationships have become common in our society as it has grown more rootless, less tied to traditional family structures, and more accepting of casual sex. But at the same time, there arises an undercurrent of feeling that something is missing—a quality of intimacy.
This quality has very little to do with the physical, though sex is certainly one possible door. Far more important is a willingness to expose our deepest feelings and vulnerabilities, with the trust that the other person will treat them with care. Ultimately, the willingness to take the risk of intimacy has to be grounded in an inner strength that knows that even if the other remains closed, even if that trust is betrayed, we will not suffer any permanent damage.
In this gentle and compassionate guide, Osho takes his readers step-by-step through what makes people afraid of intimacy, how to encounter those fears and go beyond them, and what they can do to nourish themselves and their relationships to support more openness and trust.
Osho challenges readers to examine and break free of the conditioned belief systems and prejudices that limit their capacity to enjoy life in all its richness. He has been described by the Sunday Times of London as one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people—along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha—who have changed the destiny of India. Since his death in 1990, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780312275662 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/14/2001 |
| Series: | Osho Insights for a New Way of Living |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Sales rank: | 177,219 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
FIRST THINGS FIRST THE ABC OF INTIMACY
People are searching for meditation, prayer, new ways of being. But the deeper search, and the more basic search, is how to get rooted in existence again. Call it meditation, call it prayer, or whatever you will, but the essential thing is how to get rooted in existence again. We have become trees that are uprooted — and nobody else is responsible except us, with our own stupid idea of conquering nature.
We are part of nature — how can the part conquer the whole? Befriend it, love it, trust it, and slowly, slowly in that friendship, in that love, in that trust, intimacy arises; you come closer. Nature comes closer to you, and nature starts revealing its secrets. Its ultimate secret is godliness. It is revealed only to those who are really friends of existence.
START WHERE YOU ARE
Life is a search — a constant search, a desperate search, a hopeless search, a search for something one knows not what. There is a deep urge to seek, but one knows not what one is seeking. And there is a certain state of mind in which whatsoever you get is not going to give you any satisfaction. Frustration seems to be the destiny of humanity because whatsoever you get becomes meaningless the very moment you have it. You start searching again.
The search continues whether you get anything or not. It seems irrelevant — what you have, what you don't have, the search continues anyway. The poor are searching, the rich are searching, the ill are searching, the well are searching, the powerful are searching, the powerless are searching, the stupid are searching, the wise are searching — and nobody knows exactly what for.
This very search — what it is and why it is there — has to be understood. It seems that there is a gap in the human being, in the human mind. In the very structure of the human consciousness there seems to be a hole, a black hole. You go on throwing things into it, and they go on disappearing. Nothing seems to make it full, nothing seems to help toward fulfillment. It is a very feverish search. You seek it in this world, you seek it in the other world. Sometimes you seek it in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes you seek it in God, bliss, love, meditation, prayer — but the search continues. It seems that man is ill with search.
The search does not allow you to be here and now because the search always leads you somewhere else. The search is a projection, the search is a desire, an idea that somewhere else is what is needed — that it exists, but it exists somewhere else, not here where you are. It certainly exists but not in this moment of time — not now, but somewhere else. It exists then, there, never here now. It goes on nagging you, it goes on pulling you, pushing you. It goes on throwing you into more and more madness; it drives you crazy. And it is never fulfilled.
I have heard about a very great Sufi mystic woman, Rabia al-Adawia:
One evening, as the sun was setting, and there was a little light still left on the road, people found her sitting on the road searching for something. She was an old woman, her eyes were weak, and it was difficult for her to see. So the neighbors came to help her. They asked, "What are you searching for?"
Rabia said, "That question is irrelevant. I am searching — if you can help me, help."
They laughed and said, "Rabia, have you gone mad? You say our question is irrelevant, but if we don't know what you are searching for, how can we help?"
Rabia said, "Okay — just to satisfy you — I am searching for my needle. I have lost my needle." They started helping her but immediately became aware of the fact that the road was very big, and a needle was a very tiny thing.
So they asked Rabia, "Please tell us where you lost it — the exact, precise place — otherwise it is difficult. The road is big, and we can go on searching and searching forever. Where did you lose it?"
Rabia said, "Again you ask an irrelevant question. How is it concerned with my search?"
They stopped and said, "You have certainly gone crazy!"
Rabia said, "Okay — just to satisfy you — I have lost it in my house."
They asked, "Then why are you searching here?"
And Rabia is reported to have said, "Because here there is light, and there is no light inside."
This parable is very significant. Have you ever asked yourself what you are searching for? Have you ever made it a point of deep meditation to know what you are searching for? No. Even if in some vague moments, dreaming moments, you have some inkling of what you are searching for, it is never precise, it is never exact. You have not yet defined it.
If you try to define it, the more it becomes defined, the more you will feel that there is no need to search for it. The search can continue only in a state of vagueness, in a state of dreaming; when things are not clear, you simply go on searching, pulled by some inner urge, pushed by some inner urgency. One thing you do know: You need to search. This is an inner need. But you don't know what you are seeking. And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it?
It is vague — you think the key is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful, and they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich, and they are also seeking; to the very end of their lives they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have.
The search must be for something else. These names, these labels — money, power, prestige — these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague feeling.
The first thing for the real seeker — for the seeker who has become a little alert, aware — is to define the search, to formulate a clear-cut concept of what it is, to bring it out of the dreaming consciousness, to encounter it in deep alertness, to look into it directly; to face it. Immediately a transformation starts happening. If you start defining your search, you will start losing your interest in the search. The more defined it becomes, the less it is there. Once it is clearly known what it is, suddenly it disappears. It exists only when you are not attentive.
Let it be repeated: The search exists only when you are sleepy. The search exists only when you are not aware; the search exists only in your unawareness. The unawareness creates the search.
Yes, Rabia is right. Inside there is no light — and since there is no light and no consciousness inside, of course you go on searching outside because outside it seems more clear.
Our senses are all extroverted. The eyes open outward, the hands move, spread outward, the legs move into the outside, the ears listen to the outside noises, to sounds. Whatsoever is available to you is all opening to the outside; all the five senses move in an extroverted way. You start searching there — where you see, feel, touch. The light of the senses falls outside, and the seeker is inside.
This dichotomy has to be understood. The seeker is inside — but because the light is outside, the seeker starts moving in an ambitious way, trying to find something outside that will be fulfilling. It is never going to happen. It has never happened. It cannot happen in the nature of things because unless you have sought the seeker, all your search is meaningless. Unless you come to know who you are, all that you seek is futile because you don't know the seeker. Without knowing the seeker, how can you move in the right dimension, in the right direction? It is impossible. The first things should be considered first.
So these two things are very important: First, make it absolutely clear to yourself what your object is. Don't just go on stumbling in darkness. Focus your attention on the object: What are you really searching for? Because sometimes you want one thing, and you go on searching for something else, so even if you succeed you will not be fulfilled. Have you seen people who have succeeded? Can you find bigger failures anywhere else? You have heard the proverb that nothing succeeds like success. It is absolutely wrong. I would like to tell you, nothing fails like success. The proverb must have been invented by stupid people. I repeat: Nothing fails like success.
It is said about Alexander the Great that the day he became the world conqueror, he closed the doors of his room and started weeping. I don't know whether it really happened or not, but if he was even a little intelligent, it must have happened. His generals were very disturbed:
What had happened? They had never seen Alexander weeping. He was not that type of man; he was a great warrior. They had seen him in great difficulties, in situations where life was very much in danger, where death was very imminent, and they had not seen even a tear coming out of his eyes. They had never seen him in any desperate, hopeless moment. What has happened to him now ... when he has succeeded, when he is the world conqueror?
They knocked on the door, they went in, and they asked, "What has happened to you? Why are you crying like a child?"
He said, "Now that I have succeeded, I know it has been a failure. Now I know that I stand exactly in the same place as I used to be when I started this nonsense of conquering the world. And the point has become clear to me now because there is no other world to conquer; otherwise, I could have remained on the journey, I could have started conquering another world. Now there is no other world to conquer, now there is nothing else to do — and suddenly I am thrown to myself."
A successful man is always thrown to himself in the end, and then he suffers the tortures of hell because he wasted his whole life. He searched and searched, he staked everything that he had. Now he is successful, and his heart is empty, and his soul is meaningless, and there is no fragrance, there is no benediction.
So the first thing is to know exactly what you are seeking. I insist upon it — because the more you focus your eyes on the object of your search, the more the object starts disappearing. When your eyes are absolutely fixed, suddenly there is nothing to seek; immediately your eyes start turning toward yourself. When there is no object for search, when all objects have disappeared, there is emptiness. In that emptiness is conversion, turning in. You suddenly start looking at yourself. Now there is nothing to seek, and a new desire arises to know this seeker.
If there is something to seek, you are a worldly man. If there is nothing to seek, and the question "Who is this seeker?" has become important to you, then you are a religious man. This is the way I define the worldly and the religious. If you are still seeking something — maybe in the other life, on the other shore, in heaven, in paradise, it makes no difference — you are still a worldly man. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know — "Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?" — then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inward. Then Rabia is no longer sitting on the road searching for a needle that is lost somewhere in the darkness of her own inner soul.
Once you have started moving inward ... In the beginning it is very dark — Rabia is right, it is very, very dark. Because for lives together you have never been inside, your eyes have been focused on the outside world. Have you watched it? Observed? Sometimes when you come in from the road, where it is very sunny and the sun is hot and there is bright light, when you suddenly come into the room or into the house it is very dark — because the eyes are focused for much outside light. When there is much light, the pupils shrink. In darkness the pupils have to relax; a bigger aperture is needed in darkness. In light, a smaller aperture is enough. That's how the camera functions, and that's how your eye functions; the camera has been invented along the lines of the human eye.
So when you suddenly come in from the outside, your own house looks dark. But if you sit a little while, by and by the darkness disappears. There is more light; your eyes are settling. For many lives together you have been outside in the hot sun, in the world, so when you go in you have completely forgotten how to enter and how to readjust your eyes. Meditation is nothing but a readjustment of your vision, a readjustment of your seeing faculty, of your eyes.
In India that is what is called your third eye. It is not an actual eye somewhere, it is a readjustment, a total readjustment of your vision. By and by the darkness is no longer dark. A subtle, suffused light starts being felt. And if you go on looking inside — it takes time — gradually, slowly, you start feeling a beautiful light inside. It is not aggressive light like the sun; it is more like the moon. It is not glaring, it is not dazzling, it is very cool. It is not hot, it is very compassionate, it is very soothing, it is a balm.
By and by, when you have adjusted to the inside light, you will see that you are the very source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the treasure is within you, and the whole problem was that you were seeking for it outside. You were seeking it somewhere outside, and it has always been there inside you. It has always been here within you. You were seeking in a wrong direction, that's all.
Everything is available to you as much as it is available to anyone else, as much as it is available to a Buddha, to a Baal-Shem, to a Moses, to a Muhammad. It is all available to you, only you are looking in the wrong direction. As far as the treasure is concerned, you are not poorer than Buddha or Muhammad — no, God has never created a poor man. It does not happen — it cannot happen because God creates you out of his richness. How can God create a poor man? You are his overflowing; you are part of existence. How can you be poor? You are rich, infinitely rich — as rich as nature itself.
But you are looking in the wrong direction. The direction is wrong. That's why you go on missing. And it is not that you will not succeed in life — you can succeed. But still you will be a failure. Nothing is going to satisfy you because nothing can be attained in the outside world that can be comparable to the inner treasure, to the inner light, to the inner bliss.
* * *
Self-knowledge is possible only in deep aloneness. Ordinarily whatever we know about ourselves is the opinion of others. They say, "You are good," and we think we are good. They say, "You are beautiful," and we think we are beautiful. They say, "You are bad" or "You are ugly" ... whatsoever people say about us, we go on collecting. That becomes our self-identity. It is utterly false because nobody else can know you — nobody can know who you are except you, yourself. They know only aspects, and those aspects are very superficial. They know only momentary moods; they cannot penetrate your center. Not even your lover can penetrate to the very core of your being. There you are utterly alone, and only there will you come to know who you are.
People live their whole lives believing in what others say, dependent on others. That's why people are very afraid of others' opinions. If they think you are bad, you become bad. If they condemn you, you start condemning yourself. If they say that you are a sinner, you start feeling guilty. Because you have to depend on their opinions, you have to continuously conform to their ideas; otherwise they will change their opinions. This creates a slavery, a very subtle slavery. If you want to be known as good, worthy, beautiful, intelligent, then you have to concede, you have to compromise continuously with people on whom you are dependent.
And another problem arises. Because there are so many people, they go on feeding your mind with different types of opinions — conflicting opinions, too. One opinion contradicting another opinion; hence a great confusion exists inside you. One person says you are very intelligent, another person says you are stupid. How to decide? So you are divided. You become suspicious about yourself, about who you are ... a wavering. And the complexity is very great because there are thousands of people around you.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Intimacy"
by .
Copyright © 2001 Osho International Foundation.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Foreword,
First Things First: The ABC of Intimacy,
Start Where You Are,
Be Authentic,
Listen to Yourself,
Trust Yourself,
Intimacy With Others: The Next Steps,
Be Seen,
The Need for Privacy,
Relating, Not Relationship,
Take the Risk to Be True,
Learn the Language of Silence,
Four Pitfalls,
The Habit of Reaction,
Stuck on Security,
Shadowboxing,
False Values,
Tools for Transformation,
Accept Yourself,
Let Yourself Be Vulnerable,
Be Selfish,
A Meditation Technique,
On the Way to Intimacy: Responses to Questions,
Why do I find attractive people frightening?,
Why do I feel self-conscious?,
How can I stay myself?,
What is it to give and what is it to receive?,
What is the real answer to living in intimacy?,
Meditation Resort,
Osho Commune International,
Also by Osho,
About the Author,
Copyright,
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