silence shared in words
presents
The Fear of Intimacy
THe Hidden Splendor #4
My talking to you has not the ordinary purpose that talking serves: indoctrination -- that is not the purpose of my talks.
I don't have any doctrine; my talking is really a process of dehypnosis.
Just listening to me, slowly, slowly you will be free of all the programs that the society has forced you to believe in."
Of my many fears,
the one of which I am most aware
is that of intimacy.
I am like a hit and run driver
in my relationships with people.
Could you speak to me of my fear of intimacy?
Everybody is afraid of intimacy.
It is another thing
whether you are aware of it or not.
Intimacy means
exposing yourself
before a stranger.
We are all strangers
nobody knows anybody.
We are even strangers to ourselves,
because we don't know who we are.
Intimacy
brings you close to a stranger.
You have to drop all your defenses;
only then, intimacy is possible.
And the fear is
that if you drop all your defenses,
all your masks,
who knows what the stranger is going
to 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
with somebody who is a stranger
and it does not matter, you may have lived with the person for thirty years, forty years;
the strangeness never disappears
it feels safer
to keep a little defense,
a little distance,
because somebody can take advantage of your weaknesses,
of your frailties,
of your vulnerability.
Everybody is afraid of intimacy.