“One need not have a crowd around oneself. A few deep, intimate relationships are enough; they are really fulfilling. In fact, because people don’t have intimate relationships, they have many relationships to substitute. But there is not substitution for real intimacy. You can have one thousand friends—that will not make for one real one. But that’s what people are doing: They think that quantity can become a substitute for quality. It never does. It cannot.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 282)
“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing — their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights — then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to done, not a background to thought.”
Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
John Joseph Powell Quote on Self-Worth and How Interactions Are A Mirror For What’s Within
“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
John Joseph Powell, The Secret of Staying in Love
Beyond the Quote (214/365)
Mirrors allow us to see our external self. Human interaction allows us to see our internal self. Without mirrors, we wouldn’t be able to truly know how we looked. We can get a sense of how we look and we might be able to guess, but it is only through the reflection of a mirror that we can ever be sure. Without human interaction, how might we ever truly grasp the content of our character?
Read More »John Joseph Powell Quote on Self-Worth and How Interactions Are A Mirror For What’s Within
12 Deep Quotes About Intimacy and Why We Crave It So Much
Excerpt: What is intimacy and why do we crave it so much? Read our 12 quotes about intimacy and learn how to become closer to your loved one.
Read More »12 Deep Quotes About Intimacy and Why We Crave It So Much
“Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have — forget sex — because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other’s eyes, it’s brain-to-brain.” ~ Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!
“I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other’s wounds; they repair the broken skin.” ~ Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium
“True intimacy is a human constant. People of all types find it equally hard to achieve, equally precious to hold. Age, education, social status, make little difference here; even genius does not presuppose the talent to reveal one’s self completely and completely absorb one’s self in another personality. Intimacy is to love what concentration is to work: a simultaneous drawing together to attention and release of energy.” ~ Robert Grudin
“Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts.” ~ Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power Of Intimate Relationships
“Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.” ~ John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
The Way of the Superior Man [Book]
Book Overview: What is your true purpose in life? What do women really want? What makes a good lover? If you’re a man reading this, you’ve undoubtedly asked yourself these questions—but you may not have had much luck answering them. Until now. In The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida explores the most important issues in men’s lives—from career and family to women and intimacy to love and spirituality and relationships—to offer a practical guidebook for living a masculine life of integrity, authenticity, and freedom. Join this bestselling author and internationally renowned expert on sexual spirituality for straightforward advice, empowering skills, body practices, and more to help you realize a life of fulfillment, immediately and without compromise.
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Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“Once you have grown into independent adulthood, you no longer need somebody to take care of you. You can be responsible for yourself. In particular, you realize that you are responsible for your own happiness. Nobody can live your life for you. You must create your own health, success, and happiness. This sense of self-responsibility is only a partial maturity, however. Beyond self-responsibility lies the responsibility to give your gift. It is important to grow beyond dependence on your intimate partner for your own happiness. But it’s equally important to grow beyond simple independence and autonomy. The next stage of intimacy after personal independence has been attained is the mutual flow of gifting, or serving each other in love.” ~ David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
“The whole point of an intimacy is to serve each other in growth and love, hopefully in better ways than we can serve ourselves. Otherwise, why engage in intimacy if your growth and love are served more by living alone? Intimacy is about growing more than you could by yourself, through the art of mutual gifting.” ~ David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
“The superior man is not seeking for fulfillment through work and woman, because he is already full. For him, work and intimacy are opportunities to give his gifts, and be vanished in the bliss of the giving.” ~ David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
“What you loved as a child is less interesting to you now as an adult. And what occupies your attention now will cease to sooner or later. This growth is both natural and good. We are designed to outgrow everything – including our desire to experience and improve the realms of money, sex, and intimacy.”
David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
“The capacity for solitude is a prerequisite for intimacy with another. Otherwise, it may well be that the desperate search for a partner is merely the expression of personal emptiness, and if that is the case, any relationship will be founded on weak grounds and will not satisfy the yearning for connection. The expression ‘soul mate’ can mean a partnership in which the soul is engaged, in which one’s own soul connects with another’s. This is no small thing, and it reaches far deeper than the resolution of any superficial search for romance. Part of what we long for in our wish for a soul mate is intimacy with and the expression of our own soul.”
Thomas Moore, Original Self | ★ Featured on this book list.
When am I going to find the person who is right for me?
“Many people are desperate to find a soul mate, someone who responds to their deep image of love and intimacy. They go to great lengths to meet people, and they spend considerable time feeling achingly deprived of the joys of intimacy they imagine. Their attitude is summed up in the frequent lament: When am I going to find the person who is right for me? This approach to love seems to reflect the narcissism of the times. When am I going to get what I need for my growth and my satisfaction? An alternative would be to give all that attention either to one’s own life – developing one’s talents, educating oneself in culture, and simply becoming an interesting person – or to a needy society. This crafting of a life is a positive way of preparing oneself for intimacy.”
Thomas Moore, Original Self | ★ Featured on this book list.
“If you love a person and live the whole life with him or with her, a great intimacy will grow and love will have deeper and deeper revelations to make to you. It is not possible if you go on changing partners very often. It is as if you go on changing a tree from one place to another, then another; then it never grows roots anywhere. To grow roots, a tree needs to remain in one place. Then it goes deeper; then it becomes stronger. Intimacy is good, and to remain in one commitment is beautiful, but the basic necessity is love. If a tree is rooted in a place where there are only rocks and they are killing the tree, then it is better to remove it. Then don’t insist that it should remain in the one place. Remain true to life – remove the tree, because now it is going against life.” ~ Osho, Love, Freedom, Alonenss: The Koan of Relationships