"Inquiry"
Posted by Eddie on 06/20/2008 08:36:34
JTY
>I have been working every day for the last several weeks with this
line of inquiry and am enthused! It feels like an unfolding.
Just as an aside –you likely have already found out from your weeks
of “investigation” that Hameed uses some very strict technical
terminology when speaking or writing in regards to his specific
approach which he calls “The Diamond Approach.
The web site I gave links to the other day has a marvelous glossary
that I have found to be a tremendous aid when studying Hameed’s work.
So when I’m reading along, and my experience, or for me even simply my
full intellectual understanding, has not fully grasped the idea I’m
reading, I can use this quick reference to clarify and expand my
understanding there on the spot. Wow how the modern age of technology
has made the potential for acquiring knowledge that in times past
could take decades, is now available at the click of a mouse.
For example when I’m reading along in one of Hameed’s works and I
encounter the word, the idea, the concept of say: “inquiry” what might
be the full scope of what he is meaning there? I can simply go to
the “Glossary” and click “Inquiry” and walla!
Inquiry
Inquiry is a dynamic functioning of our consciousness, of our soul,
that has to be flexible, responsive, and playful for it to be truly
intelligent. It has to be inspired by intelligence and informed by
understanding. As you inquire, you need to use your intelligence, and
you need to apply whatever understanding you have to the experience of
the moment. Inquiry is not a matter of asking a question haphazardly;
all questions have to be asked in an organic way. That is what the
intelligence is: an organic and appropriate responsiveness to each
situation. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 55)
Inquiry is also intelligent in its application of mindfulness and
concentration. Inquiry requires the global awareness of mindfulness
without identification so that you can see the entire situation you
are working with. As you take on the whole situation, you start
recognizing patterns. As you see the patterns, the inquiry starts
focusing and concentrating on where all the patterns lead.
(Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 57)
Inquiry is something that arises in the midst of your experience – as
part of your experience, not separate from it. In other words there is
not a person here inquiring into something over there. The Inquirer
has to be within the field of inquiry itself. This is different from
inquiry in natural science, where the object of inquiry is outside you
and all that is needed is to not interfere with it. (Spacecruiser
Inquiry, pg 113)
Inquiry is a process of nuzzling into God’s bosom, delving into the
secrets of existence. Ego encrustations begin to break up when we
start to see images as images, structures as structures, patterns as
patterns, and projections as projections. All of these are created and
held together by our beliefs that they are reality. The more you see
them as they truly are, the less you believe in them and the more they
start to break up and dissolve. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 280)
Inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always thinking about
things or formulating questions in your mind. You are simply aware and
curious; you love to know and feel reality fully and clearly. You’re
happy to know reality as deeply and precisely as possible. If
experience is not clear, you are simply curious about it. Openness to
experience becomes dynamic, challenging experience to reveal its
truth. Once in a while, this curiosity might formulate itself into a
specific question. You recognize that you don’t understand something,
and out of love, you wish to understand it. So questions come on their
own when necessary. The ongoing practice is therefore more an
awareness of your experience, a recognition of when you are
transparent and when you are opaque. Your interest is in
understanding, and clarity will itself bring the Diamond Guidance,
which will reveal the truth of the experience. (Spacecruiser Inquiry,
pg 372)
If we understand that inquiry springs out of the lightness and
openness of joyful curiosity, we begin to see that the heaviness and
seriousness are not characteristic of inquiry itself. They are only
characteristic of some of the content that arises in inquiry and from
the beliefs we have about it. So the content can be very happy or very
painful, but the attitude of the inquiry itself doesn’t have to be
influenced by the content. The inquiry itself is an expression of
openness, lightness, curiosity and love. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 262)
Inquiry takes a lot more energy than doing your job because it takes
all of you, all the capacities of your psyche. Even when you’re not
tired and not avoiding difficult issues, you still need energy to
inquire. You need energy in order to be open and interested enough to
remain engaged with such a subtle process, to allow such a subtle
capacity as our inner guidance to function. That’s why it is important
to practice inquiry when you feel energetic and robust, when you have
vitality. That is also why you need to live in such a way that you
have sufficient energy for inquiry, just as would be needed for doing
any other inner practice. So if you’re really serious about engaging
this work, you need to conserve your energy and balance your life so
that you can be effective in your inquiry. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg
270)
You see, the beauty of working with Essence is that there’s no place
that you can get to emotionally that doesn’t turn out to be fine if
you just stay with it. When you work with something—in this case, the
absence of the needed father—you may lose yourself at any step of the
way, and then you have all your emotions about losing yourself. But if
you stay with your experience, you realize that even losing yourself
is wonderful. You might get to another state, and suddenly you will
have a self, and having a self can feel wonderful. It doesn’t matter
what steps you go through; Essence manifests in all kinds of ways, and
each one of them is fine. So there’s no bad place that you can get to
on the essential level. Essence can manifest as self or as no-self, or
as neither, and there is really no need to worry which way it is going
to go. Inquiry and exploration, if carried deep enough, is bound to
manifest Essence in one way or another. (Essence of Intelligence, pg
244)
Inquiry and brilliancy
When we are inquiring, we are holding the content—the various facets
of experience—and then interrelating those elements, seeing
relationships, and analyzing and synthesizing. But our consciousness
not only holds the whole interrelated field, it also sees through
things; it sees through the veils, defenses, and resistances to
underlying meanings, to underlying parts of our experience. We notice
that our perception not only has a wider vision, but also that it can
have a penetrating capacity. The penetrating capacity goes directly to
the essence of the matter through brilliant illumination that pierces
as it illuminates. Our consciousness is so smooth that it can move
through little cracks, into tiny, subtle places. Brilliancy can seep
into and penetrate those little subtle cracks and allow our
consciousness to see things we wouldn't normally see. (Essence of
Intelligence, pg Word p109)
Inquiry, Teacher orientation
The teacher's lack of interest in reaching an outcome also reflects
his basic trust in the natural unfolding of the soul when one aligns
with its truth. This law of movement in the human soul, and the
teacher's trust in it, are both fundamental to the practice of inquiry
in the Diamond Approach. Inquiry is not an activity aimed at bringing
one to a particular state or capacity. Nor is it a means of
discovering what stops one from arriving at a certain outcome. Inquiry
is a means of inviting our true nature — which has much greater
intelligence and awareness than our conscious mind will ever have — to
reveal itself and guide us to a deeper understanding of reality and
our own truth. True inquiry does not assume that one outcome, one
experience, or one feeling state is better than any other at any given
time. Inquiry invites whatever is here to show itself and reveal its
truth. And each revelation, if allowed and held with respect and
interest, will lead to understanding and revelation—and the further
unfoldment of the soul. (Essence of Intelligence, pg Word p114)
Inquiry, knowledge, action
Inquiry itself is knowledge in action; it uses ordinary knowledge in
conjunction with our innate intelligence to open up basic knowledge.
It is informed by knowledge, is open to knowledge, and invites further
knowledge. Knowledge in action is both inquiry and understanding,
which is also the unfoldment of Being. We can say that understanding
liberates basic knowledge from the rigid patterning of ordinary
knowledge, freeing it to unfold according to its own intrinsic
patterning, which we experience as inherent discriminating wisdom.
(Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 90)
Inquiry and openness
We can say that inquiry is a process of always opening and opening and
opening, endlessly and freely. And it opens from any place, from any
direction, from any level, from any position. If you really want to go
into your adventure with no limitations on how far and how fast you
can go, openness has to be total and absolute. The moment you limit
the openness you have limited the amount of energy available for the
journey. So the process has to be open-ended in every way: in terms of
how you go about it, what you inquire into, and where the journey
takes you. Every limitation has to be challenged, or at least you have
to be willing to challenge it. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 27)
Aha! Sounds a lot like Mindfulness to me.
Love
Eddie