When true intimacy, the feeling of wanting to love more, give more, gets turned around, then it says, “I have loved enough. What did I get in return? I have loved so much what did I get? I have not been cared for”. These demands will start.
When you switch your direction, the struggle begins. True intimacy is recognising the flow of the current and joyfully floating with it. The current is there. You don’t have to stroke. You don’t have to move your hand and feet. It carries you and you float. Effortlessly. Taking everything for granted is true intimacy.
Observe your mind. What is happening in there? Constantly likes and dislikes. Wanting and not wanting, I want this, I don’t want this. Constant debate, fluctuation, cynicism, criticism, apathy, dejection. Do you see all these fluctuations? Are you aware of these things happening in the mind? For a while, throw off everything. Just sit. What is happening?
That is dispassion, centering. In true intimacy there is dispassion. Have you observed after laughing a lot and being very excited that excitement cannot be held in your mind? It feels awful. You want to throw off the excitement and just be quiet for a while. Have you had this experience? Wisdom dawns the day you recognise that joy is painful.
Your dispassion begins on that day when you notice joy is disturbing, exciting. You want to be a little quiet and calm. We have lost that sensitivity. That is why there is so much craving for joy, for something bigger”. Something must be better for me, something must give me more happiness”.
This is feverishness. We move from one feverishness to another. The pain of sorrow is feverishness. The pain of joy is feverishness. So you move from this feverishness to that feverishness and from that feverishness to this feverishness. It is a constant struggle.
Dispassion is that delicate balance that is beyond both joy and sorrow. In dispassion any great joy can come up and it will not shake you. That is enlightenment. Even if you are offered the heavens, you won’t move an inch from your seat. That is attainment. Dispassion is the secret. You can lean techniques and you can learn to meditate.
You can learn many things, but dispassion you cannot learn. It can only blossom in your life in time or with the presence of your teacher, your master. There is no other way dispassion can blossom. You cannot get in books. Only experience will teach you. The highest wisdom that can ever be achieved on this planet is dispassion. Anything can be shaken, but not dispassion.
Anything can be bought, but not dispassion. If you are dispassionate, if you are centered, nothing whatsoever can shake you. The only rich one is the one who is dispassionate. Otherwise you can be tempted, you can be shaken.
If someone offers you two million dollars and tells you, “Do this, do that” you will move from your position. But that person can’t move one who is dispassionate. Suppose someone comes and says to you, “You tell this lie and I’ll give you 2 million dollars”. Just imagine what you would do. Think of it. Your mind will put forward hundred and one justifications for whatever you will do.
You’ll say, “Okay, So what. I’ll say this and it may be for good and if I get two million dollars, I’ll use it for the benefit of the whole humankind. I don’t want it for myself, but I can do some good work for the whole world”.
A prostitute was once asked by a priest to tell some lies about Kabir, the saint in India. She was a very conscientious woman and she wouldn’t speak a lie. They told her, “You do nothing. When Kabir gives satsang, you go to him and hug him. Say, “Oh, my dear, it have not met you in all these days’. You just say this”. So people tempted her and made her say this for 2 gold coins. When she did that, Kabir said, “Oh, I have been waiting for you. I have been here all the time. Where have you been?” Now this threw many people off their balance.
Kabir was a man who gave sermons, satsangs every night, so beautiful, so wonderful. The Brahma jnana knowledge was dawning on earth in a weaver, someone who was not literate, an innocent man. Many people left Kabir after this incident because their intimacy was just with the words, it was not true intimacy and had arisen because of passion.
Your passion is the cause of your rebellious mood and disinterestedness. The moment you become dispassionate, there is nothing but love. There is nothing but intimacy.
