If in your heart there is a deep longing for intimacy, then don’t miss the opportunity to experience this longing directly, with no action taken to satiate it. The longing itself can speak to you of your true nature, of your hunger for what does not come and go.

The truth is that sexual intimacy is not necessary for the discovery of the deepest intimacy.

True intimacy is endless. It has nothing to do even with being human. It is an intimacy with the whole universe. The true meaning of intimacy is an embrace of the universe with itself in all of its horror and all of its beauty—in love with itself and deeply intimate with itself.

Whether or not you ever have sex again, if you discover the truth of your being you have discovered infinite, unconditional fulfillment. No person and no particular act are needed for this. Experience the truth of yourself directly, and your relationship with yourself as a sexual being will never be the same or have the same power to cause suffering.

Causeless fulfillment is within you. As long as you have any misunderstanding that true fulfillment can be found outside you in some object, then you are chasing a false god. You can recognize that fulfillment is within, untouched by anything and always here for you, regardless of circumstances. Then the mind can cease its outward activity. You recognize the futility in these habits of reaching for “it” out there in some object or some activity. You recognize that what you want is here already.

True identity, true fulfillment, waits for your discovery, is realized, and is a satisfaction beyond anything imaginable. It is the satisfaction of needing nothing, of love overflowing in the fulfillment of itself.

Sexuality as Power

One common way that sexuality gets distorted in our culture is to use it destructively as a platform for personal power. And an inescapable truth is that whenever we are doing harm to others, we are doing harm to ourselves. Obviously, when it comes to rape, rape is not just sexual; it’s a violent abuse of power. It’s an act of violence that uses sexuality as an outlet for rage and the need to feel powerful. And if you have ever experienced abuse, you know it's not a question of surrendering your personal power; power is taken from you, and that's the harm.

Another common misunderstanding is that people take freedom to mean free license for the physical body. While there can be an experience of relative freedom for the body in terms of physical circumstance, there is no possibility of absolute freedom for the physical body, so we can stop searching for everlasting freedom in regards to the body and its circumstances. The forces of nature imprison the physical body. There is no way out. The emotional body is imprisoned in feelings of “me! me! me!” The mental body is imprisoned in thoughts of “why? why? why?” True freedom is not about freedom of body, mind, or emotion. It is about recognizing what is beyond and untouched by body, mind, and emotion.

If you are no longer identified with the body needing freedom, or the emotions needing freedom, or the mind needing freedom, then you realize absolute, everlasting freedom. There is a possibility to tell the truth about what your life has been about … and what you would like your life to be about now. Then, for at least an instant, whatever wheel of suffering we might have around sexuality is interrupted. Once it is interrupted by the light of conscious awareness, it doesn't have the same power. The integrity of that particular pattern of suffering is broken, and from that point onward, real inquiry can begin.