Self-inquiry, revelation and the unfoldment.

The other day, writing to a friend, I expressed the fact that in the last month or two I was riding big waves of change within and without. She answered sharing that she was also going through the same and offering to do inquiry together. I answered that in relation to day-to-day events and issues I do not do inquiry this way anymore since many years but that I connect with my essential nature - specifically with the Black Essence, the Essence of Peace and Silence - and let the unfoldment reveal what I need to see and understand,

What do I mean, and how does that work?

Self-inquiry is at the beginning e conscious questioning, a DOING: what is this? Why now? How does it affect me?  What it has to do with me? How does it work? And so on and on, entering into a specific “object of experience” from as many angles and corners as possible. In this phase it is very helpful to do inquiry with others as it speeds up the process by adding the power of exposure to the questioning. As I hear myself communicate what I understand or not understand I can hear myself and register in consciousness with more precision and clarity “what is” and “where I am”. Self-inquiry is a “doing” that slowly becomes an ‘Invitation” to the revelation by actively engaging.

At some point there is an internal shift from KNOWING TO NOT=KNOWING. At times sudden and at other times gradual and slow. This change is also an internal movement of identification from personality to true nature: personality “knows” and believes it exists, true nature “doesn’t know” and IS. I can also say that the movement is from a sense of identity defined by objects, qualities, definitions, concepts etc.: I am good, I am stupid, I am Italian, I am a friend, a sister, a seeker and so on to the simple sense of I AM, with nothing attached to it.

That’s when self-inquiry takes a major turn: when the internal objects start dissolving and then the sense of Self as we know it starts dissolving as well. No objects means no subject.

In 1996 I had my only individual session with Faisal Muqaddam during my first training with the Lataif, the qualities of Essence. At the end of the session, which was very very simple, he told me:” Avi, from now on you do not deal with issues anymore. Just go into the Black. Let yourself disappear into the Essential nature of Peace, and revelation will happen on its own”. One of the best advices I ever received. This is what I have practiced since then until even the “practice” has dissolved as I do not need any more to “go into the black”  or do anything but simply BE that very quality of my true nature.

Let me rephrase.

Self-inquiry is a technique that we practice in the beginning. Over and over again. Alone and with others. Questioning EVERYTHING. Arising the dragon of conscious DOUBT. Passionate subversive CURIOSITY. Rebellious spirit that loves the truth. At ANY COST. Because we recognize more and more that the TRUTH MAKES ME FREE. And in this process the shift happens from experiencing the truth as “something”, as a particular interpretation, a particular perspective, a particular view and understanding we have to achieve, seek, look for, to the realization that TRUTH IS ALL THERE IS. That the Truth is ALWAYSAND ALREADY. Or, as Zen says, “JUST THIS”.

So, I close my eyes and let myself disappear into the black space of my essential nature and there the Mystery unfolds naturally responding to the invitation that I am.

Self-inquiry changes radically from a “doing”, very much needed at the beginning, to a natural quality of being as you recognize yourself as embodied self-inquiry. You are the question, and you are the answer. And they are not two things that can be separated...and then the two jewels of self-inquiry are there, simple and brilliant: Not Knowing and Choiceless Awareness.