Robert J. Strock explains how to sustain genuine inquiry into difficult questions like fear. He argues progress comes from persistent asking and committed action, not from expecting quick emotional relief. Real change in how you feel may take years.
So, Robert, I feel that with inquiry I'm able to find the vital question, the question that's most important to me and meaningful to me at the moment, at whatever moment. But I feel I'm able to find that starting point. But then I feel like once I start, it kind of dies right away. I don't know how to keep it going. I don't know how to keep it meaningful. I'm wondering if you can talk more about not just finding that question, but how to continue with the process, how to keep inquiry moving and alive.
Can you give one example of a question in how it dies?
I think I have the tendency to maybe that I'm feeling fear and kind of inquiring into what is causing it, how it feels, or. But for me, it kind of becomes, maybe I'm trying to find a solution to it or an answer, and it becomes kind of just a mental.
Kind.
Of just more obsessive thinking for me, or that I do find an answer and it doesn't really feel that it's kind of just an idea for me. It doesn't feel that meaningful or insightful.
So most of the time when you're dealing with. Let's just start with your question with fear, what you're really asking is, how would I find the source of courage or trust or faith or relaxation, depending on which is the one you most need while you're dealing with fear. And let's say you come up with a theory where it just doesn't have any juice, you still feel afraid. The key thing is that the inquiry itself is your purest intelligence and it has to not matter whether you get over the fear. And you keep measuring the inquiry based on whether the fear changes. And what's important is that you're living dedicated to, let's just say, the realization of what would bring you to a certain kind of courage or the way the path occurs. Like you might say, oh, I'm afraid of coming to do these videos and I'm afraid, I'm afraid. And then you say, well, go for it, just go for it whether you're afraid or not. And that's the perfect metaphor where you have a way to take an action and you can stay as frightened as. As infinity. And so one of the biggest traps for everybody when they go into the path of inquiry, and let's say they find something that's true, but yet it hasn't solved the feeling state, is that's the place to deepen the dedication. That's not the place to doubt the inquiry. And so the subtle part of that is long term waiting. And you can't allow yourself to want short term gratification. You have to be satisfied, you have to have enough faith that when you're dedicated to the truth, that eventually the feeling state will change. That eventually might be 10 years. And what's really important is if, let's just say you're really frightened and you're aware, you want to be more courageous when you're interacting with somebody, let's say, and you're still quivering, you're still shaking, you're trembling all over the place, you're embarrassing your family and your ancestors and everybody. Everybody's really, really embarrassed that you're acting that way. You're still staying with the inquiry and you're dedicated to, to the most courageous way you can be, even if you make a fool of yourself. And so you put your faith in the intelligence of the inquiry, into that small, quiet voice inside you that you've come to. And you don't measure yourself based on your feeling states. What you do measure yourself on is the sincere asking of how can I best be? What can I best do? And that you love the fact that you're dedicated to the truth, even if that love can't be felt. There's an intuitive sense that this is where I want to be and this is the best I can be. And it might be that I'll have to go through years and years of fear and so be it. Ra.
