The ethos and vitality of culture is rooted in the spirit in which each person lives and conducts their individual inquiry.
For the writer, questions that have shaped this inquiry remind me that however expansive thought may be, life itself is not bound by any of it.
Can careful observation and inquiry shape a life in such a way that it has that quality of the boundless, while living in a divided world full of anxiety and conflict?
To have any meaning, such a question requires we give our wholehearted attention to what is actually taking place within and around us.
Can we see see this as one undivided movement?
The questions we ask of ourselves and others will then have gravitas.
Authentic inquiry has an inner tone to it, which is never turned to ones own advantage.
With this in mind, is it possible to observe, to listen so carefully, that one can penetrate beneath each inflection of the word, thought and feeling and in so doing make it possible to end the constant chatter of the self ?
Is there any sense of ones own continuity without the chatter?
With care and attention one can observe how thought attempts to escape a sense of limitation and vacuity in its own processes.
This has generated deep seated fear at a conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious level for millennia.
The chatter of thought is clearly distinct from well reasoned understanding and creativity, but as we can observe, they are constantly being modified and evolved in terms of knowledge, practice and so on.
Great art or a beautiful equation can in someway remind us of the transcendent, of love, truth and beauty.
We may feel and act as the navigator to thought but is there any separation between the thinker and the thought?
If the thinker is inseparable from the thought, any movement of thought to free itself from self limitation is self delusion.
Delusion can generate extraordinary energy and conflict, not just within ourselves, but with each other and life in general. Any value and meaning we achieve in this way can be seen to lead to yet more dissatisfaction, self obfuscation and suffering.
All this would indicate a bleak future for mankind were it not for the perceptive potential of the quiet mind and deepening of the sensibilities.
Perceptive freedom begins when thought is seen to drive distraction and screen off the fear and insecurities that bind us to the endless loop of thought. To carefully follow this process and see it for what it is, clears this fog of self obfuscation and we begin to see how consciousness is caught up in the collective confusion of the psyche.
Beyond all that is the mystery and wonder of an indivisible presence which thought cannot touch. Indivisibility touches the lives of everyone, consciously or otherwise with the simple truth of inner necessity.