We Want to Know, but Hesitate to Know

There is a spirit of adventure in self discovery
Adventure is when you don't know what will happen next

I’ve been teaching 5 - 9 day meditation courses, held mainly in silence, for nearly 10 years now. They aim to define a time, create the right environment, and give guidance for the best opportunity to go deeper into the inner world and go further on the path of discovery and self knowledge. 

It takes something to take a slice out of your life to spend some time away from everything with the sole purpose of becoming more exposed to yourself and discover… who knows what? Anyone who attends one of these courses usually has a clear intention and is aware they are taking a definitive step in that direction. However, every time, it comes up somewhere in the course that, though I want to know, I do, I hesitate to know, and I do, at the same time.

Or to put it more directly, you discover something in yourself that is clearly inaccurate, built on false premises, and proven in some personal way to be so, but when push come to shove, still we hesitate to make the change. Why is that?

To change or not to change?

It is very difficult to change something in the mind that has been established there for a long time even though, whether it was originally accurate or not, it might well have passed its use-by date. Times, events and people change, but these well established states of mind do not change easily even when the evidence is against them and in spite of the sincerity of our desire to do so. This is a fact, often intuitively understood, but easily overlooked, and it is wiser and in the end easier and much less complicated to accept it as quickly and as fully as possible.

Prefer the familiar

It is just so much easier to slip into autopilot and let things go on in the same old way. There’s no actual harm in that, is there? Everybody does it. And no-one condemns you for being the same today as yesterday. In fact people are more comfortable with that. We like people to be sound, reliable… meaning, like me, and like you’ve always been. And if we change, those we know well will have to accept that too, or not. But everyone has the right to change don’t they, and if the time is right there’s nothing to stop you from moving on is there?

Laziness

Change is definitely the harder task, requiring more effort in every way. It’s not just that it’s easier to stay this way, than to go that way, it’s actually a whole nest of problems with knock-on effects all down the line to effect substantial change. Many of history’s worst decisions have been made as a continuation of plans already made that are just too much trouble to change even in the face of new evidence and changing circumstances - like walking into disaster.  Much of the First World War, for instance, if you’re interested

Fear of the unknown

Then, what are we going to come across when we do go inside and look deeper? We really don’t know... Or do we? There is always some intuitive insight at work somewhere that knows what we will have to face, what we know is in us. It’s the still, small voice inside, and amongst the clamour of other things, it’s got to be a particular decision whether to listen to it and act on it or not. And until we do decide, it’s that fear of the unknown, or the partially suspected that gives pause, and causes the hesitation. 

So much already invested

Built on supposition though it may be, I have invested so much in what I have come to believe in myself as real and permanent. Is it real, isn’t it real - or forget about it? Because maybe my view of myself, and then my career, my relationships, my deeply felt beliefs, hopes and dreams, in the end may turn out to be unsupported and unreliable after all. It’d be like selling out, even if the investment is no longer bringing in the expected returns. But that would be a heaviness that eventually gives way to lightness.

Proud of my ignorance

Of course this doesn’t apply to you or me, but boy is there a lot of it about. Well if I’m not gonna change, might as well make a virtue out of it - the right to be honoured not for the quality or accuracy of belief, but for the tenacity with which I hold it and hold onto it, even if it is a fantasy. Some people will do anything for a little attention, but present a different face to the world, and you end up believing it.

No fun in it

There’s no doubt that if there is a deeper insight into the inaccuracies of life then a realignment of viewpoint is sure to follow. And it may seem as if there is going to be less fun to be had out there, even as it also becomes clear that the ‘fun’ from before was unreliable as a lasting proposition for happiness. I knew someone once who said that he wished he hadn’t learnt what he had through his own spiritual aspiration, because life was easier and less complicated and more fun before. There is a lot of fun in truth, but it’s a different kind of fun than fantasy, more like an adventure

No guarantee of the outcome

Even if the path of self knowledge is pursued sincerely and diligently for some time, where’s the guarantee of a worthwhile outcome? Those who have gone before assure us that there is, but who believes such things these days? Caught in the middle of the journey when the highway has turned from three lanes at the beginning into two lanes, and then into a steep and rocky road with hidden obstacles, there is a temptation to turn back for a better road, regardless of the destination. But can’t you have arrival without the travel.

There is eternal beauty in accuracy

It is testing and trying, but there is one thing that is overlooked, the quality that keeps the eye on the road and the destination in mind: faith. Faith is naivety isn’t it? Who believes in anything you can’t test and satisfy in your mind first? Well, that’s a Catch 22 right there: if we are clear about it, we find it’s that same mind we tend to trust for everything that proves itself unequal in this particular matter. It's good in the material world, but in the inner life, accurately knowing one’s true nature, that’s outside its jurisdiction. Missing that catch will lead to a lot of problems.

There’s so much more to this than meets the eye. There are people, places, philosophies and practices that can awaken faith and keep it alive. But you have to begin to question long held beliefs and get away from the ongoing influences for some time to get access to it. But when internalised, tested though it may be from time time, it is the most valuable thing we can call our own, because in the end it proves itself to be very much our own.