photo credit: h.koppdelaney
I have often said that consciousness expands more through the questions we ask than through the answers we find.
Follow the questions, I say.
Answers are too often dead ends. Once we think we have the answer, once we think a matter is settled, so to speak, we close the door and any further exploring beyond the comfort zone of our answer is gone, never to be considered again.
Questions, on the other hand, lead us down new avenues of possibility and adventure. By resolving to follow our questions we learn to follow one question as far as it can take us and then we replace it with another bigger question and see where that takes us – on and on we follow, in an ever upward spiral of growth, learning and growing as we go, rather than getting bogged down in the dogma that answers often turn into. After all, answers do become opinions which prompts judgment when we look at others through them.
Instead, it's preferable to live in an”I don't know” state of consciousness.
But, of course, I understand how uncomfortable living in such an “I don't know” state can be. This is only because we tend to think that we're supposed to know already, which means we feel obligated to pretend to have answers (to ourselves as well as others) when we don't know. Otherwise we're afraid we might look uneducated, lacking in wisdom or all around unintelligent. We scramble madly inside our minds when we don't know something instead of tapping into the more relaxed and curious state of exploring the question.
When we are looking for answers, we tend to settle for the most likely answer (usually that means an explanation that best fits our belief system) and then we latch onto it.
Before we know it, we're speaking as if our answer were fact. And that's the end of the question as far as we're concerned! Such an approach is the genesis of a closed mind.
To keep our minds open, we learn to ask questions such as this one:
“What is the purpose of my life?”
Follow that question in, allowing the “answers” to collect without settling on one, perhaps you will notice another more relevant question arising, such as this one:
“What does Life want to do with me?”
Now, there's a question to follow deep into the vastness of Source!
May your questions take you on a thrilling inner adventure of self-exploration.
Blessings,
Lynne