The Intimacy of Deep Spirit or Non-Dualistic Rapture

The first definition of intimacy according to Dictionary.com (and American Heritage) is listed as "(1) a close association with or detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a place, subject, period of history, etc.: an intimacy with Japan."

Notice how this concrete and concise definition is applied only to objective and empirical, places, subjects or time periods and NOT necessarily to relationships or people. The dictionary defines ‘intimacy' between people as the typical: "(2) a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group" and, of course, "(3) sexual intercourse." The problem with the second (2) definition, as applied to Deep Spirit relationships, is that to understand intimacy from that perspective one must first define the interior abstract concepts of "close," "familiar," and "loving." This then leaves us with the objective and exterior (3) "sexual intercourse" and we all know that one real well.

This is problematic since "sexual intercourse" is the typical, conventional means of attempting to realize intimacy and because of this we all tend to overly-sacralize, albeit unconsciously, "sexual intercourse" as exemplifying or epitomizing intimacy, whereas, it essentially distracts and dissociates from Deep Spirit intimacy or "deep understanding." As we all know, "sexual intercourse" does not require intimacy or "deep understanding" and can be engaged in at the drop of a hat, and nature attests to this.

You attain a deeper more spirit-based understanding of another as you feel safer to reveal, expose and share your interior experiences of one another to one another. Unfortunately, this often requires intense and excruciatingly painful conflict to precede the dissolving of barriers.

"I can imagine the moment... breaking out through the silence... all the things that we both might say... and the heart it will not be denied, 'Til we're both on the same damn side... all the barriers blown away" (Come Talk to Me, Peter Gabriel)

We slowly realize, through a deeper understanding, that our motives (deep-seated) were not related to present attack, but more related to a collection of past 'hurts.' Trust and safety is again realized simply through the revealing and intimate nature of fearless vulnerability. This indicates your desire to attain a "deeper understanding," which demands that your self-preserving righteousness be discarded.

It is a lack of trust in your relationships that grows over time as judgments are made from a lack of intimacy or deep understanding. If you have not connected to depth over a long period of time, the dialogue remains mired in the ‘everyday' and relating becomes shallow and useless. You then fail to correspond from Deep Spirit through sharing your ‘depths' and you become more distant and increasingly more ‘separate-together'.

Unfortunately, this pattern will eventually demonstrate that you can maintain this separate-togetherness for only so long before the stress of such a solitary experience or 'being-in-aloneness' presses against you and results in episodes of dissociative communication and chronic conflict. In those moments there is no closeness, certainly no "love," or even familiarity (as in definition 2) and this is simply because, over time, we have actually lost the deep understanding (definition 1 above) of one another that tends to displace and diminish conflict.

INTIMACY AND DEEP SPIRIT

Over time we inadvertently exile one another to become strangers in a strange and absurd 'world.' This can be frightening or disconcerting, because the world has nothing we need and there is nothing IN the world that can help us reach our 'depths' or attain an intimacy with the 'self' through intimacy with others. Spiritual depth can only be accessed through each other, because "you" were not constructed in isolation from a world of others. Only intimacy through other selves will fully give you your "self" in vivid technicolor. The world can give you nothing, yet, it does seem apparent that the world can give us everything - TOGETHER. But only if the experience of ‘world' is shared deeply - TOGETHER. This does not require sexual intercourse or bodily involvement of any kind, however, it does not necessarily exclude that part from the whole.

Why continue to rely on patterns of conflict, unconscious or denied, to finally reach intimacy or a deeper understanding? Why is it necessary to bottom-out before you can see the need for recovery and healing? Why not maintain the trust and safety of intimacy through a consistent desire to know and to deeply understand one another? Why do you watch those you profess to love drift away, while failing to close the distance?

The problem is your reliance on the 'world.' The world, or reality in general, does not serve the purpose of intimacy or deeper understanding and like a vacuum it sucks up and absorbs our attention and demands we seek to comply with its values.

We have created a world to distract us from ourselves and our depths (and possibly this "creating" is as much a phenomenon of consciousness as it is a physical one). This idea is not new and many brighter minds than mine, have said as much. We expect the world to help us understand who we are, even though we remain incredulous over the degree of absurdity that we clearly see makes up our world.

Do we feel we have no choice but to subordinate the values of intimacy and deep understanding to the values of an empirical world? Is this what it means to be trapped IN the ego, when in fact the ego feels trapped IN the world? Or is it that intimacy or a deep understanding of others is so intense as to exhaust us and this makes adherence to the world's values so much more easy and seemingly effortless?

But although it seems easier, don't we often feel that adhering to the world's values is unnatural and at times even obscene? And when we finally do encounter an instance of intimacy or deep understanding with another, do we realize it as one of the most incredibly natural experiences we have ever encountered or does our continued conformity to the world's values stifle our awareness of what actually took place?

Or do we simply fear seeing our "self" in and through, another, realizing that this is the only way we can ever know our 'self'? Do we then fear finally knowing our 'self'?

Many have heard and often resist the idea that intimate relationships require work. Why is that? Why is cooperating with the world's values so much easier than cooperating with the immeasurable value of Deep Spirit intimacy? Why would you choose NOT to understand the other deeply, even though that failure to deeply understand causes you and them so much pain and suffering?

Deep Spirit (what some refer as our inner connection with Divine Mind) is NOT in the world, separate from an intimacy with that world and the only way we can encounter intimacy with the world is through a deeper understanding of one another. Find someone and go there, but don't be concerned of the form through which that relating takes place. The world demands forms, while Deep Spirit is only concerned with content.

In other words, full and joyous engagement with the world can only be experienced through intimacy with the world and that can only be had through, and with, others. The idea that God is ‘in-everything' seems logical to all spiritually inclined people. But to experience God ‘in everything' is only possible through the deep understanding of ‘everything' that only intimacy with everything can provide and this is non-dualistic rapture. More importantly, to engage intimately with the world requires intimate engagement or a deep understanding with the ‘others' that also "experience" the world, since the world is a construct of  that collective ‘experience.'

This seems to point to the 'Oneness' we so often hear talked about, but resign to the category of platitudes. Given up the idea or concept of personal enlightenment or that the "truth' will come to you if you only engage in specific esoteric and austere practices (although, I agree that this may aid in increased intimacy and may serve as 'invitation' to truth).

I suggest exploring communion through deeper understanding or intimacy with others. Of course, this starts with those closest to you, but I sense there may be a branching out from there, which would one day include the 'world.' However it manifests should not be particularly concerning to you since, as long as you can remain with the experience, it will build upon itself of its own accord.

"Seek first the kingdom of heaven within and all else will come unto you" is easy to understand when you realize the kingdom is not yours ALONE.

"You will see your value through each other's eyes and as each one is released as he beholds his savior IN PLACE of the attacker who he THOUGHT was there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in bringing peace." (ACIM UrText)