What is Inquiry?

Why inquire? Does one inquire to attain something? Does one inquire to become something? Or does one inquire because one is suffering? How does one learn to inquire?

One of the difficulties with language is that a word could have many conflicting interpretations. So, we must proceed with great caution and be very clear what we mean when using the word inquiry, as this word is used in a wide variety of ways in different contexts, such as:

• Inquiry into the nature of material world and its properties.
• Theoretical/academic inquiry that is concerned with espousing new theories about the nature of the world/self.
• Analyzing/theorizing about the society, the economy, the politics etc.
• Analyzing/ theorizing about the psychology of a human being.
• A so-called spiritual inquiry based on any kind of scriptures found anywhere in the world, or based on fixed ideas of what should be like atman, karma, emptiness, salvation, nirvana, heaven and hell, messiah etc.
• So-called new age ideas of interconnectedness, pop psychology, law of attraction, positive thinking, higher self/lower self, etc.
• Self-help genre- presenting ideas in order to grow rich, famous, successful, happier, more productive etc.

It is acknowledged that many of these different ways of understanding inquiry may have their uses in particular fields of knowledge or action, or be used by individuals to formulate ideas about themselves and about the world. But what do we mean, here on this website, when we use the word inquiry?

Let us stay with this question and avoid the temptation to give definitions. Let’s leave this matter in the zone of unknowing (i.e. the zone of inquiry) for now, or in other words, let us continue to inquire into the meaning of inquiry.

Let us examine this issue from another perspective.

Why do we even want to inquire? Why are we here on this page, reading all this? What is driving this curiosity to find out more?

One of the root meanings of the word curious is someone who ‘inquires eagerly’, and the root meaning of the word inquire is to seek, to examine. So then the questions that arise are:

1. What is it that we are seeking or inquiring into?
2. Why is it that we inquire?

A young child (let’s say someone under or close to 5 years of age) is often full of questions about the world around them. There seems to be a certain quality of newness in almost everything to such a pair of young eyes. One of the root meanings of the word young is “vital force”. Indeed, there does seem to be this vitality in the inquiries of a young child.

But what makes this child curious? Clearly its not an academic pursuit for someone at that age. Nor do their inquiries seem to have any specific direction. Its almost like everything or anything that comes into contact with their senses, can potentially become (depending on circumstances) an object of inquiry. And this inquiry is not merely in the form of verbal questions, inquiring seems to happen in the form of playful exploration, whether of physical objects or of ideas, emotions etc. It is a different matter though that whether such inquiries are stymied (often) or allowed (rarely) to flower depends on the environmental factors.

Fundamentally, it seems it is the newness of things that triggers and drives inquiry. An encounter with unknown evokes this desire of wanting to understand it in any which way, and hence “overcome” its newness in the process. To turn the unknown into known and then act from that field of known, is perhaps one of the most important quests or processes of human mind.

And how do we seek to overcome the unknown? This constant attempt to overcome the unknown happens through accumulation of knowledge – in the form of experiences that become memories, facts, conclusions, beliefs, opinions, ideas, ideologies etc. As the child grows and approaches adulthood, knowledge expands and with it the unknown recedes (seemingly). If inquiry during childhood was evoked by newness that was ubiquitous, then one could say that with receding of newness in adulthood, inquiry recedes too.

Or, inquiry takes specialized directions depending on the circumstances. A doctor maybe concerned with inquiring in the field of medical science, a social scientist in the field of sociology etc. While the inquiry of the childhood has this free-flowing, undirected quality about it, these adulthood inquiries as are increasingly specialized, directed and hence limited. These inquiries could be driven by the desire to become experts in certain fields. 

Clearly, we are not here for those specialized, or limited inquiries, for there are much better ways and means to do that than reading this.

Then there are other inquiries that are not necessarily triggered by the quest to gain expertise in certain fields. They may be driven by a desire to understand the world, the society, oneself etc. Such inquiries may crisscross various fields such as material sciences, society, politics, religion etc.

And what drives such inquiries in the adulthood? Could it be the sense of curiosity or wonder, just as it was in the childhood?

While in infancy every encounter with the world is akin to a new encounter with the unknown, every sight, every sound, every idea is fresh and evokes wonder, as one grows older this daily encounter with the world acquires a jaded quality to it. Everything that is new quickly attains the colour, the fragrance and the flavour of the old. Explanations replace wonder. The old becomes the default field in which living takes place, like a black hole it gobbles up the new the moment it is perceived.  For an average adult, the wondrous moments of coming across something that is truly new, being overawed by something truly mysterious seem to be far and few in between.  

And yet the unknown remains and expresses itself through unpredictable turns and twists of life. In the realm of physical world, for example, all the knowledge about earth and its geology, the weather patterns, the atmosphere etc. may give us an illusion of control but we are unable to control or even accurately predict the earthquakes, the floods and the hurricanes. One may have read all that there is to read on human psychology and behaviour and yet one remains unable to relate meaningfully to the one’s world. One may spend years upon years reading scriptures, seeking greater erudition about the ‘divine’, but as is often the case in one’s daily life one remains as far removed from what one seeks as one was before having read any scripture.

And so on.

In other words, one keeps seeking to expand one’s knowledge to fill and overcome the unknown- hopefully in its entirety, only to fail, over and over again.

The unknown stands tall and undefeated. Expansion of the known does not help us to understand the unknown (except in the field of material or technological knowledge). On the contrary, a constant expansion of the known produces the illusion of conquering the unknown, thus stymieing the inquiry.

So then we must see this clearly that any inquiry that merely operates in the field of knowledge, the one that seeks to use or accumulate knowledge to overcome the unknown, must be limited and insufficient by its very nature.

 And when one finds that one is unable to this- to put the known away, then one watches that attachment to the old and the resistance to the new too and all the explanations that justify or deny the attachment and the resistance.

One watches whatever it is that is happening. It is in this watching that the known begins to weaken and wither.

It is in this watching that inquiring unfolds.

Next: Suffering and Inquiring