"Now maybe it is like the dog forever chasing its tail, you are meant to seek the answers without ever drawing closer to any kind of resolution? I think the answer is to live in the present and to love as honestly as one can. To put others before yourself. I think that is the answer."The Western view of what a question is for can limit our understanding.
We naturally assume that one asks a question in order to eventually find the answer and for "ordinary" questions such as "What's for lunch ?", that's quite a reasonable view.
However, there is another type of question where it is not the answer (even assuming there is one) that is it's purpose, but the inner journey brought on by direct contemplation of this "unknowable" question. Without any requirement of an answer or hope of a particular result.
In a similar way that the question "What is at the top of that mountain ?" could lead to a profound and unique journey of actual experience. What may be found during that journey and perhaps at the top, is not "the answer" but a sort of byproduct.
I think in general we are blinkered by the achievement of "goals and "aims" as things in themselves rather than as a means.
In the realm of the inner journey, any attachment to such goals as ends in themselves will sooner or later prevent opening to the unknown.
Without a long and adequate preparation with help from knowledgeable guides the question "Who am I ?" is more or less bound to find only the refection of one's ordinary self.
Even this preparation may not be straight forward since the guide must sometimes present the "answers" as much nearer and more achievable than is the case, in order to help the aspirant to at least begin the journey.
Such a journey is only for those who suspect there is more to ordinary life than what is presented.
It could be described as a realisation that "Man should not live by bread alone ..."
This "ordinary life" includes almost all things supposedly of a spiritual or "higher" nature .. which as we know are often very ordinary.
Perhaps this is why
@Parsifal has the view
"... they (such questions) are in fact a version of self absorption. We are in fact ultimately utterly irrelevant but the source of endless existential grief is to believe there is more to it."Opening to the unknown is not so much a matter of finding or achieving an answer, but gradually recognising all that comprises the ordinary "self", especially when it proudly presents itself as "the unknown".
It is said how crafty is "the Adversary" and how he is Lord of this World. That "World" is analogous to one's inner world.
As usual, just a few bits and pieces which may leave you none the wiser !!
Don't give up.
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