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To live intimately is
to live within Intimacy... so
drop all ideas of intimacy,
such ideas will only block
being surrendered into a closeness
with Truth,
with Life,
with anyone,
with anything.
Intimacy appears
fresh and undefined,
even unknown.
Each moment of intimacy
is never-before, never-repeatable.
* * *
I have written much on Intimacy. I hesitate to say spiritual intimacy, for Intimacy, as I write of, is not spiritual and not not-spiritual. This is beyond the opposites of close or not-close. Also, this Intimacy does not differentiate, seeing "holy" to be superior to "unholy," or "sacred" to "secular." This Intimacy includes everything, while the manifestation as a self-sense, the I-sense, within Intimacy can have varied degrees of quality in experience of Intimacy. So, in this presentation, I clearly set forth that experience of pure Intimacy is of a different and relatively more subtle quality of experience of Intimacy than being emotionally close with someone. Yet, I do not mean less subtle means wrong or bad or unspiritual or immature or sinful or something like that. Certainly, for example, emotional closeness is an experience healthy and can be life-enhancing; yet, emotional closeness is a positive experience of a less selfless experience than Intimacy prior to person with person, or ego with ego. Inclusion, here, as always, does not negate differences in quality.
* * *
After the writing from yesterday, a dear friend asked about the possibility of time and age influencing intimacy. So, I will address that today, giving an edited and enlarged summary of what I wrote in reply. Yet, what one means by intimacy is instrumental. I say Intimacy to differentiate intimacy from intimacy as commonly understood, emotional intimacy. And, in my culture, sometimes we hear sexual intimacy. Emotions may be influenced by Intimacy, as sex may be a means of Intimacy expressing. Intimacy is, however, neither emotional nor sexual, but is prior to both. Yet, we are stuck with words, and I will work to differentiate the emotional from what I sometimes refer to as true Intimacy, which is an odd matter, for Intimacy Itself is true.
Before proceeding to the question and reply, I offer a quote to return to after the reply. Then the quote may make some sense, as to its relation to our sharing today.
* * *
We wait attentively, without conclusion, for the poem to find us.
Jean Klein. I Am.
* * *
Do you think time or age....experience or wisdom make a difference in intimacy?
Seems it can work both ways as regarding emotional intimacy, based on how one ages, and what kind of experiences and response to such ~ softening, opening us, or hardening, closing us. This Intimacy I write of is not an emotional intimacy, however, but is a directness of connection essence-with-essence and leaves no residue of emotion. This Intimacy is not of the body-mind state of feeling-sensation or thought. This Intimacy has no emotional or thought state, Intimacy is simply Intimacy, regardless of what one feels or thinks at any moment.
Intimacy arises from the Heart, God, Spirit, True Self, who you truly are ... ~ not a you or he or she or I that is a thinking and feeling piece of meat subject to experience and age ~ the essence is what I refer to, and the nature of essence is timeless connection, even immediacy (Intimacy) with Itself. This being so, Intimacy arises from the timeless, and any true connection essence-with-essence is an eternal moment, even as Intimacy appears into time. Still, Intimacy is timeless, and this is a reason why when connecting so with another, one easily loses sense of time. The thought of time interrupts the flow-happening of Intimacy. So, time arises within Intimacy, not Intimacy within time. So, saying Intimacy arises, which I frequently do, means a wedding in time between the timeless and time; yet, truly, Intimacy never arises in time but as a perception, since Intimacy cannot be absent so to appear. More truly, one finds the truth-happening of Intimacy by Intimacy awakening one in a communion within Intimacy Itself. Yet, this simply cannot be spoken, so I must contradict myself, it seems. Simply, for now, Intimacy is literally Withinness, but not our experiencing an arising of this Withinness, but our being awakened to the fact that Intimacy is happening within Itself, where we already are, but most are asleep to this, living in the smog of feelings and thoughts, not the lucidity of Truth.
* * *
The Christian "Trinity" is an intuition of this natural, unmediated closeness. In that image, God is not trying to be intimate, is not being emotionally intimate, is not thinking intimate thoughts of Itself ~ God is simply Intimacy Itself that makes all moments of intimate sharing heart-with-heart possible in the "three" ~ father, son, holy spirit. So, with us; Intimacy prior to the experience of intimacy makes the experience possible. Yet, the Intimacy Itself is prior to the experience of Intimacy happening between or among. So, Intimacy arises of Itself, effortlessly, wedding time and timeless.
* * *
Age and experience can work with the body, through Grace, to dissolve, soften, the blockages to Intimacy arising ~ these blockages are called, sometimes, "knots," while Intimacy is untouched by time and experience and is itself free of any hindrance, any "knot." Time and experience can prepare the ground for the arising of an ever-fresh happening of Intimacy, or Withinness, so close we cannot speak of it as an emotional matter at all, cannot speak it at all.
Seems many persons who are married do, for example, express this movement from emotional to essence, their sharing being more about a loving being-with, not a feeling closeness. As the body ages, the power of the senses weakens for the senses are grounded in the body. This opens to more potential for Intimacy, simply by the lack of sensation potency. So, I saw this with persons dying, when a hospice chaplain. As persons neared death, the body began dropping away before clinically dead, and what appeared was the shining of essence. The body (matter) is the veil of Grace (spirit, Spirit), and as long as we cling to body as who we are, we block essence from freely, intimately expressing. This is why sometimes I say we need to die before we die. Yet, almost everything in our society teaches us we are a thinking-feeling-body, and we buy into that, even when we deny it, for that is so ingrained in us at a cellular level.
* * *
Intimacy can arise, likewise, by persons being together and the natural wearing down of the tolerance or need of the emotional feeling of closeness. How long can we sustain feeling deep love-as-sensation before it simply becomes too much to be sustained by the body? The body will close down to Intimacy at the toleration-point. So, even in emotionally close relationships, we tend to shut down the feeling for a time for an emotional-intimacy-break or sabotage emotional closeness with conflict, emotional drama; yet, this conflict can be a way of creating distance so not to over-load the body with the sensation of closeness ~ really, the body itself is closing down, no conscious choice being made. No one is present, logically deciding to create this conflict or to go on an emotional-intimacy vacation.
With Intimacy, not emotional intimacy, one senses no arising of such intolerance, no need to block or sabotage the living current of closeness. True Intimacy does not exhaust the body, for it vivifies the body, renewing it, refreshing the body-experience. If fatigue arises in the body, that is a natural fatigue, not a reactive one against Intimacy, not appearing as intolerance of this Love loving happening. The difference in the so-called emotional intimacy and Intimacy Itself can be seen in these ways body responds.
* * *
There is a sense of closeness, a Feeling before any feeling of being close. Spiritual contemplation is a return to that naked sense of Oneness, or Intimacy, and a denuding of reliance on feelings. Feelings of closeness, then, may or may not arise in sharing, yet Intimacy is present always. As consciousness returns more and more into the Source before personal intimacy, a natural movement from reliance on emotional intimacy occurs and the felt-need for such diminishes. Intimacy Itself draws us back to trust in and relax in Intimacy and prepares the body to live within the Intimacy, whereas in emotional intimacy, the intimacy is in the body. Ego, then, linked with body, initially resists the arising of Intimacy and chooses substitutes for what we most deeply long for. Indeed, a so-called model relationship can appear and sustain itself, for example, as a defense against releasing into an Intimacy not person-to-person. Intimacy, rather, is not personal at all, indeed is impersonal. Any arising of personal is the body registering the impersonal and happening Presence-of-Grace.
* * *
In terms of Christian Contemplation, for example, persons learn they are one with God as much when feeling no sense of that Presence as when feeling touched and deeply by that sense of God being near. There is a Feeling of "God" one may live with, but that is not an emotion.
* * *
We learn Intimacy has no special feeling to it at all, and Intimacy cannot be absent regardless of what feelings are present or not. So, we learn Love is not about feeling loving or even that we feel or know ~ mentally ~ that we love him or her, anyone. Love is this direct Intimacy happening before any thought or sensation of loving, before even the arising of I as subject and he or she or they as an object I love. So, we could say, Intimacy is Love, Love is Intimacy. This is why the thought of God, or any being to worship, drops in Contemplation.
* * *
Now, a return to Jean Klein's words, when he speaks of the Presence, or openness, we are, and how truth arises in that relaxed posture: We wait attentively, without conclusion, for the poem to find us. In the sense of engaging in the apparent duality of daily life, we learn to relax and Intimacy shows Itself. When sharing with others, Intimacy will appear to arise, we simply relax into the openness we are. We learn to trust this, and our relationships become more a graceful flow, rather than our working at making the relationship a success. This is problematic anyway, for a relationship to fit any idea of a successful relationship. This idea will block Intimacy. We no longer try to be loving, we find loving arising naturally in the receptive spaciousness for it to inspire us to act in ways to engage others. But, really, we are not the one deciding this flow of Grace-happening. Intimacy happens. Our role is simply to be present with the happening.
* * *
This is somewhat like sex. If true Intimacy arises in the sharing, Intimacy arises not through the effort to be intimate, rather from the act of freely loving. Sex founded in effort is valid only at a physical-emotional level, solely located at the level of experience. Anyone engaging in sex likely learns trying actually blocks the flowing together of body, mind, and soul (total Self) in expression of loving. One, also, may discover the verity that Intimacy appearing to arise from the sexual sharing is really that the sexual happening is within Intimacy happening, or the sense of Intimacy appearing would not happen. In subtle expressions of sex, the movements of sex become the flowing of Grace, of Intimacy. Graceful sex, as expressing Grace, is poetic, and this mirrors a way of living from the Heart, not the body ~ living intimately.
* * *
Last, Intimacy is, regardless, always and now. Grace graces, appearing as direct, unmediated connection with anything, human or otherwise, to the extent of capability to receive and express Intimacy, for reception and expression are one within Intimacy.
*The vision statement for Lotus of the Heart is Living in Love beyond Beliefs. These presentations, inclusive in nature, are invitations for persons to explore for himself or herself. Brian does not claim to have answers or the Truth for anyone. He provides pointers to Truth, so as to inspire others on his or her own journey of Truth, to compassionate living with Earth and all creatures sharing this planet.
*All material, unless another source is cited, is authored by the presenter of Lotus of Heart, Brian Kenneth Wilcox, Florida USA. Use of the material is permitted; Brian only requests that credit be given and to be notified at 77ahavah77@gmail.com . Also, for spiritual guidance via phone, Skype, or in-person, Brian can be contacted via the above email.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union, is available through major booksellers.
*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title.
The Sacred in Me bows
to the Sacred in You
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