Two Forms Of Intimacy
One form of intimacy is that which comes from clear seeing, from finding oneself without a head, as emptiness and fullness, capacity for whatever arises and that which is happening in the present.
Here, the intimacy may be experienced in different ways.
If we believe in the thought "I" and have it refer to ourselves as pure choiceless awareness, then we may see the intimacy between our human self and the rest of the world of phenomena. It is all a seamless fluid whole. And there is also a sense of "no separation" between "I" and "that".
In the absence of such a belief, there is no "I" to be found anywhere, and there is only what is happening. If we are to add a layer of abstractions onto it, we can say that there is either "no I" to be found anywhere, or "I" is the whole of what is happening.
But if this clear seeing includes a subtle way of denying our human life, then this creates a sense of separation in our interactions with others - which after a way feels more and more "off", unsatisfactory and phony.
So now we are invited into another form of intimacy, the ordinary human one. We bring our humanness into the clear seeing, and there is a new depth of feeling, experiencing and being in the world. There is a deepening empathy with ourselves and others, a deepening sense of gratitude, compassion and humility. A deepening sincerity and honesty about how it really is for us, without having to fit a norm or an idea of how it "should" be. And all this allows for a far deeper intimacy and connection with other humans. We rejoin the human family, but now in a far richer and deeper way.
From being exclusively identified with as our human self, we awaken as what is happening in the present - and our nonhuman existence, and then finally bring it all back into our ordinary human life in a far deeper and more intimate way.