Inquiry is Not About Resolving Issues, Understanding the Past, or Having Spiritual Experiences
A couple of months ago, I was talking to a friend., who is also a teacher of the Diamond Approach. Part of our conversation involed a golfing buddy who had left the Diamond Approach for a more meditative spiritual practice. One reason mentioned was being tired of inquiry – “if I ever have to do another inquiry or repeating question…!”
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who informed me that she was taking a sabbatical from the Diamond Approach. She, too, was exploring a more meditative oriented discipline. One reason – too much emphasis on inquiry.
Several years ago a fellow student in my group left the work because, to her, it was too much head and not enough heart.
These situations speak to a curiosity of mine around how inquiry is viewed, practiced and incorporated into one’s life.
Inquiry continually focused on issues, reactivity, the past, object relations, difficult situations and such can become heavy and carry more of a sense of work and burden than the thrill of revelation.
Using inquiry in an attempt to resolve issues and life situations seems to me to be ego oriented toward feeling good, getting free or being present (from the ego’s perspective).
I hear very few complaints involving a sense of “work,” tedium, effort, boredom, inertia and such around “positive inquiry” – inquiry involving essential states, boundless dimensions, diamond vehicles and the like.
It seems true to me that when people leave the work feeling a sense of burden, fatigue, inertia or complacency around inquiry that their experience is not dominated by inquiry of essential realms and presence or even inquiry that generally ends in deeper essential experience. There seems to be an overall sense that inquiry is some kind of analytical efforting that involves too much thinking. I find this very interesting as I find inquiry to be – more heart oriented with a huge assist from the head for deeper understanding — but then, it is difficult for me to distinguish a heart/mind ratio in my inquiry.
Too Much Mind, Too Little Heart
Inquiry is susceptible to mental process dominating the exploration –
- Because many of us have mind/body and mind/heart splits in our psyches
- Because we confuse asking questions with inquiring
- We use questions to focus and orient us toward our experience not analysis
- Even when we love discovery, revlation, insight and understanding, we may still view inquiry as more head oriented and maintain a mind/heart split.
Love of Truth
Love and Truth are inseparable. They are merely different ways of seeing or experiencing the same “not one, not two.” Mind/heart split can support misperception that Truth or Love resides more in one body center than the other.
I Got You Babe
Reactivity is the Gorilla Glue for maintaining the dynamic inertia of psche chaos. Reactivity is spinning our wheels, running in place, mental masturbation, emotional milking, a BB rattling in a can.
- Reactivity has a perverse logic – If/when I can resolve this issue or situation, then I will be able to _____.
- Reactivity helps maintain a psychic vortex that traps us in cause and effect thinking.
- Because inquiry is effective in freeing us from cause and effect, it is very easy to make it a cause – a tool that will create a desired effect.
Affect – The Great Destabilizing Force
If we explore reactivity, we find that affect and imagination (projection in this case) are two critical components for maintaining our inner terrorism and suffering. Helplessness, powerlessness, hopelessness, sadness, heartbreak, guilt, anger, fear – there’s a long list of fuel to drive the reactivity machine – a runaway movie projector (popcorn not included) for leaving concrete physical reality for fears and concerns around the future or a heavy dose of the past in the now.
Isn’t it interesting how we can spend years and years in a dance of torture with our favorit affective partners? We even have a “logic that makes sense” as to why we continue to dance.
I’d Rather be Shitty than Sane
If we were to say that real sanity was free of reactivity, what does that mean?
- That we see things as they are?
- That we are present?
- That we are free from the past and projection?
Why do we choose suffering over sanity and freedom? (please, no quaint answers) Obviously our suffering must be the lessor of two evils? This predicament is only obvious when we finally see that we cannot “do” our way out of our suffering.
Only the Past Can Hurt Me
Over the past 3 years, I have been inquiring into pain. What exactly is pain? Not physical pain, but the emotional, psychic or spiritual angst that seems to be so prevalent in the human condition. As yet, I have not arrived at a conclusion, but I am currently pondering two interesting elements.
- The experience of this type of pain is always alleviated by a state of presence – leading me to agree with what I have read – “suffering is separation from Being.”
- Only the past can hurt me. I notice when I am in pain or a state of suffering, the past is always in play.
The Wound Will Never Heal, the Hole Can’t be Filled
Many people suffer with wounding and trauma from childhood. We carry an inner-child or soul child with a deep wound or deficiency and have hopes of finding what is need to heal this child and fill that gaping hole or void. But the truth is this – nothing will ever fill that void and heal that child because that child is an identity trapped in the past and the hole or deficiency is an integral part of the identity. In fact, the hole is the central component of the identity. If the hole goes, the identity goes – that suffering child will dissolve along with its need for love, intelligence, value, acceptance – whatever. Sounds good except we are very attached to that child and getting what it wants.
The Real Will Disappear You
When my best friend died, I learned something about why I hold on so dearly to my issues and suffering – the real will disappear us. Whereas, suffering is a great organizing dynamic for the ego identity.
Grieving is an endless abyss that amazed me each day with how it would bring more depth to my suffering. As I became curious about this, I realized that the grieving was reflecting the depth of love. As I began to focus on the love instead of the loss, I began to disappear. Staying with the real will dissolve everything except the real – in this case love – all that remains is love. Even the loving person disappears.
Affect – The Great Organizing Force
I think it was Kohut that introduced the notion of affective nuclei. One way the mind organizes experience is to file and reference experience according to the affective component. No wonder we sit on a freight-train load of anger, guilt, resentment, hatred, loneliness, and etc. No wonder the now is so susceptible to the past taking over. Our capacities for feeling, sensitivity, impressionability and knowing through being are a two-edged sword.
No Conclusion, Only Continuing Inquiry
These are a few of my thoughts and curiosities around the notion of inquiry and why some use the notion of inquiry as an explanation for seeking something else. We all seek wholeness and what is right for us. I am not of the opinion that inquiry as a central practice is the right fit for everyone, I’m just curious about how people really see it.
Items of Interest
Links of Interest
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