Q. I feel concerned with knowing my real nature, but this concern does not seem to be deep or earnest enough to actually bring any real insights. How can I become more serious, more effective, in my inquiry?
Jean Klein: Being more concerned will not make you more concerned. To deepen your inquiry, you must explore and venture into uncharted territories. When you read books and live in compensation, escaping from your deepest desires and needs, you will become bored because you refer everything to the past, to what you already know.
Earnestness comes when you look closely at your body-mind. Inquire and question your motives for your actions. Ask yourself, "What am I really looking for in this act?" I don't mean go into an analysis of it, looking for compensatory motives. But discover the ultimate motive for what you do. You will see that the ultimate desire is to be desireless, the ultimate goal of all achieving is to be free from the need for striving, the ultimate motive for all becoming is to be free from all that you are not. So face the moment itself.
Explore how you waste energy in nervous and muscle compensations. See how you spend time talking rubbish. Take note that perhaps the effort spent working means more to you than the check at the end! Look how you function. When you see your mechanisms, there will be discrimination in your life. You'll be less dispersed, and intelligence will come in. You will enjoy the quiet moment and look less for compensations.
It is only laziness which hinders serious inquiry. Do not escape the ultimate moment. Face it, and you will become concerned and earnest.
- Jean Klein, The Book of Listening
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