Chapter 2 - True Intimacy
Day 5
For a seed to sprout, first it has to be sealed somewhere inside. Then it sprouts. True intimacy is a combination of all emotions and feelings. Everything will be there. There can only be two things in the world-one is indifference, another is love.
You can be indifferent to somebody, or you can love somebody. Love can take any flavour. You can be angry with someone and there Is love there. see, you only get angry at people whom you love.
You won't be angry at someone on the street with whom you have no connection. vhen vou have something to do with somebody, when you relate vourselt witn someone, then you get angry at them.
So two things are there - indifference and intimacy, or love. Indifference means inertia, like a table. When indifference has died in you, you see that every one of us is connected. We are all intimate.
So we don't try to connect ourselves. We are very natural.
See, you know some people for a long time, maybe several years, and then you meet them again. They don't remember you, but you remember them.
How will you deal with them? You tell them, "Oh, I know you from long ago" They say, "What do you mean? I don't know you." Do you get what I mean? The dimensions of understanding are different.
I tell Michael, "Oh Michael, I know you so well, don't you remember me? Come on" He says, "No, I really don't know you, Gurudev. Only last year I just met you." He will think, "Oh, Gurudev is a little crazy." So what do I do? I simply wait.
I don't say, "Oh, Michael, I know you so well. You know, too. Remember, remember? I want you to remember". I keep quiet. I am not anxious that Michael should know that I know him, that he knows me or that he should remember.
Your anxiousness to make somebody know you intimately, destroys your intimacy. This is very important. You feel intimate with somebody, don't be anxious to show them that you are really intimate with them ale you redly care for cren.
Question - What do you do?
Gurudev Sri Sri - You simply smile. You acknowledge, you smile and allow them to become intimate by themselves. The nature of intimacy is that it wants the response from the other side.
When you feel intimate, you would like the other person, also, to feel intimate with you. But they need to take some time. They need to breathe. Don't be in a hurry to express your intimacy. They may feel suffocated.
It is always so. Make them flower in intimacy from within. That will happen when you wait, when you relax. True intimacy is not in a hurry, it's not anxious. It relaxes, it knows.
Some people cannot handle the love of their partners. There is nothing wrong with their partners. But love is so much that they feel suffocated. Day and night, they won't leave them or give any space to them.
That is what I call expressing your love too much. Then your actions become weaker. The charm in love is lost. So love should flower in the Divine.
A newly-wed couple was in one of the big courses. The husband would never even meditate. He was always looking at his wife to see whether she was meditating or not. He would come and ask about her experience in meditation.
He was always concerned whether she was experiencing anything or not, whether she was doing the Kriya or not. She is not the wife only. She has other roles to play, too. So, what is true intimacy?
True intimacy is to take for granted that you are intimate. They belong to you and you to them. Don't make an effort to convince the other person that you love them. And do not doubt, even a little, whether they love you or not.
Take it for granted. "Yes, everybody loves me." Do you know what will happen? Even if there is no love, if there is some doubt, all that disappears. This is the secret.
I know when people meet me they are friendly, but they have lots of doubts rolling in their heads. I don't take any notice. I simply know they are a part of me, that's all. I don't make any effort to know that. I know it.
They are a part of me. They belong to me. It is like my own fingers. If one of your fingers is long or short or bent, you don't mind, you accept it. You don't say, "I have a thick finger, I have a thin finger, I have a long finger."
You don't cut them off. You have scratched your eyes many times with your own fingers, haven't you? You have hurt yourself with your own fingers. You never chopped them off. You just take it as a part of yourself.
Question - What is self-inquiry?
Gurudev Sri Sri - Self inquiry is seeing everybody as stuffed rag-dolls. Nobody has any fixed personality. They are all rag-dolls. Don't see people as definite personalities. All personalities change.
A good person, due to your own karma or vibration, can say something wrong to you if you have to be hurt. If you have good karma, even the wrong person will start helping vou and be kind to vou. This is true.
I have seen people, who have committed a number of crimes, do such noble, wonderful work. They have really helped people. Outside Delhi, 35 kms away, there is a village which was known for a very famous criminal.
One day this criminal walked into the ashram with five or six others. We were about a hundred people, with pandits chanting. The criminals came there with knives and guns, but they spoke to our people so kindly. Everybody was frightened, almost fainting.
Their hearts were beating and they were perspiring with worry about what was going to happen. We were thinking we were so isolated, there was no telephone, no proper communication with Delhi, 35 kms away.
Our people were so frightened when these criminals walked in, but they said, "Oh, you are doing wonderful work. We will do anything for you. We will support you. Whatever you want, we will do it in service to you."
They behaved and spoke very kindly. You could see their kind hearts even in their roughness and surrounded by weapons. So others react to you in the manner that is due to you. They are all rag-dolls. A wonderful person, or a nice person, may say something to you that would hurt, but in fact, nobody can hurt vou. It is vour own.
So true intimacy is to see that no other person exists. It is me sitting in the form of Michael there, sometimes a little confused, sometimes worried, sometimes happy. It is me sitting there as Jeff. It is me playing all these different roles.
It is all me. That is self-inquiry - not to see the difference. See, this body is a little close, that body a little farther away. That is the only difference. The Being is only one. So when the mind recognizes this oneness, the mind dissolves, disappears.
This is all me, a part of me. Jeff is a part of me, Lloyd is a part of me, Shirley is a part of me. Now look that you are there also. This body is a little nearer, that body is a little farther away. And even this body is going to drop some day.
You will realise when the body drops, you will remain, "Oh, my God, what has happened? I see this body, and there is no difference between that body, this body, or this body But if we can realize that when we are alive, that is enlightenment, that is true love.
That is all there is. There is no difference, everything is me, everything is part of me. We are in one ocean called life. All different bodies are shells containing the same water. So this name and form is an illusion.
It is only relative existence. I don't mean that if I have eaten, it is enough and there is no need for Jeff to eat. No, no. In your relative work and experience, the difference is there. But in reality, for all the true values in life, there is no difference.
So satsang is feeling that so-and-so is my own part. Then you have trust and confidence in yourself and in everybody. And you don't keep worrying what so-and-so is thinking about you, what George is thinking about you.
What Jeff thinks about you, what Michael thinks about you, what you should do to make them feel comfortable. All this nonsense will disappear. There is so much nonsense, trying to make somebody feel better or think better.
You will relax. That is true intimacy. You take it for granted that you are intimate with everybody. You can't help but be intimate in the true Self, in reality. You may act for some time as though you are not, but it is not true.
You are already connected. And don't expect a recognition of intimacy from the other person. That will destroy your own intimacy. If you think, "Does Lloyd also feel the way I am feeling, or is he feeling differently?"
The very doubt in your mind will make you start observing things. You back out. So, you don't care how Lloyd thinks. Whatever he does, you feel intimate with him. It's his problem. You feel he belongs to you, so behave in that fashion.
If you have to get angry, get angry. If you have to slap him, slap him. You do whatever you feel is right. That's it. That doesn't mean you don't care or consider. You do , but all this becomes very spontaneous. And your action will not, in any way, be a reaction to his
resconse.
In true intimacy you never look for any response from the other person. It is a responseless phenomenon That is intimacy. If intimacy needs a response, it becomes a business. Don't look for any response. You be loving, be a lump of love. You sit, talk, walk, do anything. That is freedom.
Question - Gurudev, does karma have to do with the process of letting go of the ego? How do you let go? What does it have to do with karma?
Gurudev Sri Sri - That is where you need to feel the connection with the Enlightened ones. Your connection with the Enlightened can destroy any karma. When you feel you can't let go and there is a burden, that is when you surrender.
That's where you say, "Oh, my dear teacher, you help me, take this burden off me". When you can't let go, that is exactly where your teacher comes into play. You will see the burden simply vanishes.
Question - You mean just in the presence of the teacher, or do you mean at any time?
Gurudev Sri Sri - Yes, any time. Mentally, within your mind, in your heart.
God Loves Fun.
