Intimacy

(Originally published by kind permission of Deepak Chopra in 'The Art of Living')

The Latin word intimus, from which we get the word intimacy, means ‘the innermost.’ So intimacy is the experience of allowing our innermost self to be touched by the world, to be moved, to be transformed. Ecstasy is the experience of total intimacy - with God, with nature, with life, with the universe - but above all, with ourselves.

We can only be intimate with others to the extent that we can be intimate with ourselves. We need to be fully present to our own pain, our vulnerability and broken-heartedness, as well as our joy and our wonderful, quivering aliveness. Then, we can be equally intimate with a tree, or a cloud, or another person. When we experience true intimacy with someone, we recognize their sacredness and their beauty. True intimacy naturally inspires respect and reverence.

We experience intimacy with God in two ways: on the one hand, God reveals him or herself to us through the world, which is God’s body. So in this sense, intimacy with God means intimacy with the world. When you stroke your cat, you are stroking God. There’s no separation. On the other hand, God also approaches us from within, as our heart’s longing and as the tiny voice that whispers to the soul.

Mystics like to think of God as their lover. When you imagine God being your lover, you get a sense of how intimate that relationship could be. It’s exciting, it’s erotic, it crackles with electricity. We need to bring that erotic juice back into our spirituality.

All desire is ultimately the desire for happiness, bliss, and ecstasy. All desire is the desire to experience that rapture which the mystics speak of as sacred union, or the divine marriage. However, we all get caught up in some form of illusion. We think a particular man or woman will give us the bliss we seek - or maybe it’s money, or success, or a drug.

Traditional religion often condemns these types of ‘worldly’ desires. They say, don’t waste your time, go straight to God. I say that our quest for love, or money, or security is not a waste of time. Rather, it’s the way we learn our spiritual lessons. It’s how we acquire wisdom. At the same time, can we understand that through the lover, or the money, we are seeking something else, something otherworldly? We’re after what the Sufis call the Beloved, or the Priceless Pearl.

Consumer society feeds only those desires that can be exploited for financial profit. It invites us to shop till we drop, and every day new credit cards arrive in the mail to egg us on. Meanwhile, the desires of the heart and the soul go unattended. Addictions and eating disorders run rampant. On the one hand we’re raping the planet to satisfy our greed, on the other, we’ve put our hearts on a starvation diet. This is a great tragedy, and unless we begin to honor the desires of the soul, it can only lead to disaster.

The desires of the soul should take precedence over the desires of the ego. When you lie on your deathbed, you won’t care whether you drove an expensive car, or had a prestigious job. What will matter to you is whether you lived your life fully, whether you loved deeply, and whether you did what your soul came here to do.