63. The end of enquiry
The mind revels in questions, and satisfies itself with answers. This is true with the superficial as with the profound. We constantly struggle to pierce through the clouds of doubt, but doubt never seems to fully dissipate. Rigid belief systems have been erected to relieve this human condition, and many will take refuge in them. Where people cannot find certainty, they will manufacture it.
This is a grave danger, as history has demonstrated.
There is another way. We can embrace doubt and uncertainty as natural features of our minds, rather than combat them. Then, we can transmute them into inquiry, which is an open exploration of possible answers to all questions. Inquiry is of great service to your personal evolution as it is to human evolution on the whole.
A re-known technique to understand the true cause of some phenomenon is to question the answer to “why” with another “why”, until you get to the ultimate cause. This is useful for any scientific or philosophical inquiry, but the more we inquire into a matter the more complex it becomes. We must then take a more holistic view and recognize how all things are intricately bound...including ourselves as the observer. There will always come some point when logic can take us no further. It is like a rocket that self-destructs once it has propulsed us beyond the planet’s gravitational field. Once we have reached the “outer space” of truth, our logic is of no avail. We float in the great mystery to which we can but surrender.
You are a great seeker, but your search will not end with the discovery of the Truth at the end of the road. Full of paradox, puzzlement, and poetry, the end will be your recognition of yourself, the doubter. The 63rd hexagram in the I Ching is called After Completion, whereas the 64th is called Before Completion.
Take courage in this realization that you cannot err in your path of inquiry. You will not find what you are looking for, but you will be found.
Now, for an instant, relax and let the proposition sink into your being that you do not need to find Truth. Grant yourself a moment of trust that you will find your way as surely and as effortlessly as an acorn grows into a mighty oak.
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