ESSENTIAL LIFE QUESTIONS, PART I. . .

INTRODUCTION

Live the Questions. – Rilke

Essential = essence, basic, indispensable and inherent.
Life = from birth to death
Questions = there are three types of these: questions to respond to immediately, questions to respond to after a time, and questions to ‘hold,’ live into and, over time, perhaps a response will emerge.

I have been thinking about these types of questions for more than twenty-five years. At one time I called them Fundamental Questions of Existence, now I experience them as Essential Life Questions. These are questions to hold and live into – life questions; they are not questions that I seek to answer and then let go of; still, these are questions to address now and in the future (the future being a series of ‘nows’). So, Gentle Reader, I offer you these questions to hold, consider, ponder, respond to, and perhaps to live into.

I have emerged many categories and many questions and so after today’s introductory posting, I will devote two postings to the categories and the questions. Because there are many categories and many questions, I will choose a few of the categories and a few of the questions in each one and offer them to you.

However, before I offer you the questions, I offer you some ideas to consider:
• It seems crucial for one to be awake to and aware of which part of one’s ‘self’ is asking a particular question. For example, which questions would I choose to ask from my heart and which from my head? Which do I ask from my ‘public self’ and which do I ask from my ‘private self’?
• A few thousand years ago, the Oracle at Delphi advised us to know ourselves; given this: What assumptions do I hold that influence my asking a particular question; for example, do I hold an assumption that people are inherently good?
• Consider holding each question in the ‘now’ – literally, at this given moment, what is my response to each question. I offer this because at any given moment I might well respond to each question differently and over time I might then discern a larger pattern.
• Questions also connect us to choice: What will I choose right now – love or resentment, compassion or judgment, forgiveness or revenge? Perhaps a story would help with this question:

Once upon a time there lived deep in the forest a family. At night the grandfather would sit by the fire and his granddaughter would sit close by; as they sat in silence a question would emerge from the little girl. This one night, however, the silence was broken by the grandfather. He said, in his soft, quiet voice: ‘Do you know that I have two tigers living within me and they are fighting. One tiger is full of anger, rage, spite, and resentment and the other is full of love, compassion, caring, and empathy.’ The little girl looked up intently at her grandfather and after some time of silence finally asked, ‘Grandfather, which one will win?’ Her grandfather looked lovingly at his granddaughter and responded: ‘The one I feed!’

• Some questions might require me to be intentional about my environment: As I know myself, what is the environment that will provide me a safe and quiet place for reflection? How much time do I need to spend within this environment? What would it take for me to create a ‘reflective-environment’?
• Consider that the following questions will help you see a deeper understanding rather than achieve a goal; it helps to hold this if I believe that who I am determines the actions that I choose.
• Gentle Reader, as you sit with the questions you might also hold this question: Which question is so important at this time that it becomes difficult to think about anything else?