What is a question?

[Barna]

Self inquiry is about contemplating the question "What am I?" or "Am I aware?". 

These can be pretty useful, but how about contemplating on the inquiry itself? 

What is a question? What is this feeling in me that creates a thought in the form of a question? 

What is curiosity? Is the curiosity conscious? Is Consciousness curiosity? 

Can I answer any question without knowing the existential nature of the question itself? 

[Mu_]

@Barna Maybe you'll like my video on this from a few months ago.

 

 

[Barna]

@Mu_ In your video you're focusing on the validity of a question from an intellectual point of view.

I'm not really interested in the meaning of a question because ultimately no question can be answered. What I'm interested in is the sensational, feeling actuality of a question. How does it feel? How am I creating it right now? What is curiosity in this present moment? 

[ajasatya]

@Barna A question is a manifestation of the Universe's thirst to know itself.

[tsuki]

@Barna I see two ways to approach this. One way is from the egoic POV: 'how can I ask questions at all?', meaning: 'my inner dialog is triggered by curiosity, and this curiosity is non-verbal'.

The ego does not ask questions in this sense - it verbalizes its reaction to something that is not attributable to it. It is not possible to say what is curiosity, because language is a second-order phenomena that is built on top of non-verbal stimuli. These phenomena originate 'abroad', from 'beyond' of the boundary of egoic identification, whatever it is. If you consider yourself to end at the boundary of your skin, then curiosity may be triggered by another person's behavior or something new that the Ego stumbled upon. On the most basic level, the ego is an invention of the Universe, just as @ajasatya says and is the illusory boundary between yin and yang spinning in infinite hermeneutic cycle.

On a more phenomenological level, curiosity is when the subjective world "freezes", "suspends", and leaves us out of the flow. To answer a question is to return to this flow, to stop being interrupted. Knowledge on the most basic level is simply - doing.
Being present, thoughtless, is the highest possible level of embodiment (mastery) in this context.

Edited August 29, 2019 by tsuki

[Mu_]

16 hours ago, Barna said:

@Mu_ In your video you're focusing on the validity of a question from an intellectual point of view.

I'm not really interested in the meaning of a question because ultimately no question can be answered. What I'm interested in is the sensational, feeling actuality of a question. How does it feel? How am I creating it right now? What is curiosity in this present moment? 

Eeeeeh, ya its just as much intellectual as a feeling or anything.  I'm pointing to something beyond questions and the emptiness of them.  Im curious though what do you mean by wanting to feel a question?  You mean the curiosity before a question or perhaps from which it arises?

[Truth Addict]

In general, a question is a part of the process of creating a distinction (duality).

The process would be like:

1. Awareness of the distinction.
2. Understanding the distinction (asking questions).
3. Implementing the understanding (answering the questions).

Another definition would be that a question is you (awareness) limiting itself in order for you to get specific outcomes. Example: scientific research.

Another definition would be that a question is you (awareness) trying to identify something as something else, trying to identify sensation as thought, trying to create a (better) map for the territory. Example: existential inquiry.

[cetus]

14 hours ago, ajasatya said:

@Barna A question is a manifestation of the Universe's thirst to know itself.

 The universe as a whole is one sensing organism with each a cell of awareness exploring itself. 

[TheAvatarState]

On 8/27/2019 at 11:55 AM, Barna said:

Self inquiry is about contemplating the question "What am I?" or "Am I aware?". 

These can be pretty useful, but how about contemplating on the inquiry itself? 

What is a question? What is this feeling in me that creates a thought in the form of a question? 

What is curiosity? Is the curiosity conscious? Is Consciousness curiosity? 

Can I answer any question without knowing the existential nature of the question itself? 

I actually deeply contemplated this the other night. It took me a couple hours before I could sleep because figuring out the nature of a question was so fascinating. Here's some insights I learned: a question is rooted in language, and is only a relative, human endeavor. This seems obvious, but think about it... Questions did not exist before language (a recent invention), nor were they necessary to exist or function as a conscious being. 

When? What? How? Where? Why? All questions must start with these words. A question is a tool to dig up an answer, and every answer in it's own way begs a question or series of questions. Think of "question" and "answer" like Yin and Yang. Yes, there's a black and white dot in each. One could not exist without the other. Upon zooming out, the whole circle represents Understanding. Notice that every question provides a hidden metaphysics or framework, and every answer only partially succeeds in answering. This is because inquiring can only happen within a dualistic framework of language.

What's interesting though, is that inquiring done correctly can strip away context and lead you to realization of the Self. You can question the metaphysics of a question, ultimately leading you to Being (the question eating itself alive). If you question questioning enough, you drop it and enter Understanding. But more often than not, questioning tends to bury you under more layers of concept and imagination. You can only know something in terms of another thing, both of which are co-dependant inventions of the mind. It's only 'round and 'round. 

That's not to say it isn't USEFUL. But ask yourself this: has mankind gotten any closer to Understanding what reality actually is? From a certain perspective, yes, and from another, we've strayed farther. This force inside you to question is a manifestation of a much larger force. What I want you to understand is that this is a very low-level playing field, these questions and answers. The game is rigged. The question sets its own rules, and even going deeper, the act of questioning is tied to receiving an answer, and vice versa, changing eachother in the process. High consciousness understanding cannot occur on this playing field. Questioning is bound to duality, relativity, and other factors that if questioned would make your head explode. You must transcend. 

[Jack River]

1 hour ago, cetus56 said:

 The universe as a whole is one sensing organism with each a cell of awareness exploring itself. 

Nice perspective, ol buddy...it seems so strange to put the universe first prior to awareness. You know what I mean. I have to do a double take and use various differences to connect the dots. But I like the way you did it. Anyway hope all is well, man ?

 

[Nahm]

@Barna

You can not forget on purpose, nor make the world perfect, so there are questions.

[Barna]

The meaning, purpose and origin of questioning are all interesting, but that's not what I'm after.

When I sit down for a self-inquiry the following happens:

- What am I? 

- Seems like I'm everything right here in this present moment. 

- And what is this present moment? 

- This present moment seems to be an inquiry. 

- What is an inquiry? What is a question? 

- A question seems to be a thought form in the mind fueled by curiosity. 

- What is curiosity? 

- Curiosity feels like a reaching out to know more. But it also feels like a pulling in of all the available information. 

- Where does curiosity gets its energy to reach out and pull in? 

At this point I feel like I don't have more answers because the question is inquiring the source of existence itself. But I might be wrong, that's why I was asking you guys.

[Truth Addict]

54 minutes ago, Barna said:

When I sit down for a self-inquiry the following happens:

- What am I? 

- Seems like I'm everything right here in this present moment. 

- And what is this present moment? 

- This present moment seems to be an inquiry. 

- What is an inquiry? What is a question? 

- A question seems to be a thought form in the mind fueled by curiosity. 

- What is curiosity? 

- Curiosity feels like a reaching out to know more. But it also feels like a pulling in of all the available information. 

- Where does curiosity gets its energy to reach out and pull in? 

At this point I feel like I don't have more answers.

Do not try to find conceptual answers for who/what you are. That's not how you do self-inquiry, but rather how you distract yourself.

Focus more on the sensation of the self. Try to pin down the one that is asking questions, not conceptually, but actually.

Who is asking questions about questions? Who is the one that wants to know?

 

...

 

However, you can contemplate the nature of questions on another time. 

1 hour ago, Barna said:

- A question seems to be a thought form in the mind fueled by curiosity.

- What is curiosity? 

What about the thoughts? The mind? The relationship between thought and reality?

Do you already know what those things are?

1 hour ago, Barna said:

- What is an inquiry? What is a question?

How about what is an answer?

[Barna]

@Truth Addict I'm not conceptualizing anything, I'm just giving labels to my direct perceptions so that I can write them down for you. Everything that I'm questioning is happening right here, right now, it's all actual. 

17 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

What about the thoughts? The mind? The relationship between thought and reality?

Do you already know what those things are?

Baby steps First I'm interested in the sensational, feeling aspects of a question. 

[Barna]

20 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

Who is asking questions about questions? Who is the one that wants to know?

I didn't find a "who". It's just happening. So I'm interested in what is it that's happening right now. 

[Truth Addict]

50 minutes ago, Barna said:

@Truth Addict I'm not conceptualizing anything, I'm just giving labels to my direct perceptions so that I can write them down for you. Everything that I'm questioning is happening right here, right now, it's all actual.

How does your perception of yourself feel different every time you try to capture it?

First, it was something that you called "the present moment". Then, it's become an inquiry. Then, curiosity.

I think that there's still a process of conceptualizing that is happening in the background, and it's so sneaky that it doesn't appear on the radar.

1 hour ago, Barna said:

I didn't find a "who". It's just happening. So I'm interested in what is it that's happening right now. 

What is happening other than what is happening?

[Barna]

3 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

How does your perception of yourself feel different every time you try to capture it?

First, it was something that you called "the present moment". Then, it's become an inquiry. Then, curiosity.

The present moment includes the inquiry. The inquiry includes a curiosity. My perception of myself doesn't change because I am nothing that I can observe. And I am everything that I can observe. 

3 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

What is happening other than what is happening?

Are you trying to point to consciousness? I am aware that I am aware. This a nice starting point, but there's a whole world to discover beyond this. That's why we're experiencing this human existence. 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Barna

[Truth Addict]

@Barna

Why are you still practising self-inquiry?

18 minutes ago, Barna said:

there's a whole world to discover beyond this. That's why we're experiencing this human existence. 

Like what? And how do you know?

[Barna]

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

Why are you still practising self-inquiry?

Every inquiry is self-inquiry when there's no real distinction between self and other.

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

Like what? And how do you know?

By "world" I mean the eternal and ever changing present moment that we all experience. Don't you want to dive deep into that? 

[Lowerplanedweller]

Life and learning new stuff go hand and hand,

Learning is an adventure

don't necessarily need a question to get started.