Questions are keys to Knowledge and Insight

At times we get a feeling that for a given project or a course in college we put in a lot of work to learn something and it was wasted - since it did not get used. No knowledge gained is ever a waste.

Knowledge and insight are fruits of interest generated by questions within us. Question arising within us is the key to knowledge. Questions generate a pursuit for answers and this pursuit generates insights and knowledge (even if the answers were not meaningful or not used).

Losses (my favorite topic!) can generate "impossible" questions that demand a very strong pursuit for answers. This pursuits often generate deep insights, knowledge and wisdom. Loss is a forcing function - it may not be essential, but it helps!

Similarly, any effort may not bear a desired fruit, but effort never goes wasted. The consequence of an effort often crystallizes in some reward in a totally different context.

It is all a part of the Reality.

Loss - A portal into the Reality

Just some thoughts as they came today ....

Essential realizations for me on the path towards Reality:

• There is NO real loss - since nothing really ever belongs to us (ownership is egoic)
  
• There is NO ultimate meaning to search for - everything leads to ambiguity
• There is NO ultimate answer to anything - nothing can be completely known
  
• There is NOthing you can completely control - laws of nature run everything
  

The reason why I find these essential is that we spend so much of our lives in the false pursuit - of preventing losses or crying over losses, of trying to be 100% sure of something, looking for meaning (or cause) into everything and trying to control and determine everything.

Somehow we live in an amazing illusion (maya) that there is indeed genuine ownership, meaning, ultimate knowledge and ability to determine the outcome. We become captives of this compulsive illusion. So, how do you break this illusion and SEE the Reality?

Maybe these realizations sound trivial unless you have desperately tried to investigate your loss, or searched for a meaning for living and life. It is in such failed pursuits that one comes to the realization of the negative (no ultimate meaning, no ultimate ownership, no ultimate determining, no control). For me the pursuit became desperate with the loss of Samay - and the following multitude of losses. The loss became a portal (gateway) that opened up my eyes to the Reality - which was always there. On one hand all this sounds negative. However, actually it is liberating. It is liberation from having to prevent a loss, from having to discover the ultimate meaning and truth and from having to control. Without the pressure of succeeding, the pursuit of truth and meaning becomes more natural with open eyes and awareness. It is more an adventure where the path becomes more important because you are no longer looking for a destination.

So for me, loss opened up a window (portal) into the true state of Reality.

It is all a part of the Reality!