OPEN QUESTIONS

I used to anguish over my mind’s incessant need to ask questions. I thought skepticism and spirituality were not supposed to go together. I remember one night on my first yatra with Sadhguru. High in the Himalayas, scribbling on a notebook page I couldn’t see very well by firelight, I was trying to diagram my way to enlightenment. The teacher was speaking, and I wanted to catch every word. I had “the seeker must give up everything” underlined and circled. But then from earlier I had written down, “the seeker must not let go of the question” and I wondered which idea I had misheard.

It’s raining in downtown Bellingham. I should be in English class, but I already read the assigned novel the class is plodding through, and I already thought all the thoughts I wanted to think about it. I take the bus downtown and get off at the stop between two used bookstores.