Intimacy is an essential part of human existence and relationship. Humans are born into a state of intimacy. And, as they age, it’s the yearning for intimacy which compels them to transcend their limitations.
By intimacy, I’m referring to a form of union which obliterates separation, at least temporarily. Though related to human love and pleasure, intimacy is much more. In fact, to grasp the significance of intimacy, you must recognize that intimacy is the direct experience of what is real and authentic in yourself, your partner and in Universal Consciousness, the singularity that is the foundation of the phenomenal universe. Like Samadhi, the yogic state of union, intimacy emerges from mutual love and comes to fruition when partners give themselves permission to give and receive pleasure without judgment and fear.
To experience intimacy with your partner, your Self and Universal Consciousness, you must first recognize that intimacy is not attachment, dependency or bonding. You can’t have or hold on to intimacy; you must surrender to it by giving up your attachment to the ‘I’ and the individual mind and ego, which support it. In fact, where there is the will to power or the need to manipulate or control, intimacy will be impossible to achieve or sustain.
It’s also important to recognize that intimacy cannot exist in an environment where there is overt or covert manipulation or oppression. You must have the liberty to be yourself for intimacy to emerge, and you must offer the same liberty to anyone with whom you share intimacy.
Truth, Freedom & Love
In a relationship where truth, freedom and unconditional love are restricted or lacking altogether, there will be a lack of life-affirming energy and consciousness to sustain intimacy. That’s because you can only experience intimacy when you are sharing what is most authentic in you with your partner, your Self and Universal Consciousness.
The Yearning for Truth: Truth is an essential part of intimacy because you can only be intimate when you are expressing your truth by living with integrity. It’s important to note, however, that integrity is not the product of belief and cannot be achieved through effort. Integrity emerges when you let go of judgment and express yourself spontaneously, regardless of the consequences.
The Yearning for Freedom: Freedom is an essential part of intimacy because you must be free to express yourself without fear in order to become intimate. Those who are dependent or who seek relationship to feel secure and-or who need to control or be controlled cannot achieve intimacy. Control destroys love and prevents partners from achieving and sustaining intimacy because it blocks the free radiation of energy and consciousness between partners and Universal Consciousness.
Freedom, in this context, is the freedom to go inward and to express what is authentic through relationship. It’s an act of becoming. Freedom of this sort is enduring. It is a state of permanent Self-awareness that cannot be taken away by any outside agency. It can only be forsaken out of ignorance. Even then, the loss of freedom can only be temporary since the enduring condition of each human being is intimacy with Universal Consciousness, ‘Om Tat Sat’ (thou art that)!
The Yearning for Unconditional Love: Unconditional love is an essential part of intimacy because it is impossible to achieve intimacy unless you choose to love unconditionally, regardless of the consequences.
The yearning for unconditional love is in fact the innate yearning for intimacy with Universal Consciousness. Though you may believe you are an individual, separate from Universal Consciousness, it’s simply not true. The truth is that everything that exists emerged from Universal Consciousness and continues to be nourished by it. On some deep visceral level, each person knows that. That is why all human beings yearn for unconditional love. Freud called this yearning the infantile need to return to the womb. Like many of his generation, he misinterpreted what he observed.
The truth is that human beings were designed to do one thing perfectly – to be vehicles through which Universal Consciousness can participate in the world. Though it comes in many names, Universal consciousness, Christ consciousness, Bhrama, Atman, the Logos and the Self, the simple fact is Universal Consciousness is at the center of human existence. And it is through intimacy that a person becomes whole again and manifests unconditional love, through intimate relationship on every world and dimension of the phenomenal universe.