On Questioning

From a correspondance of the Holy Instant Christian Church--

Last month we showed that one's mind doing nothing allows extension of the miraculous state of being which Jesus tells us heals the sick, raises the dead, and lifts our world to light beyond belief ... a state of being available to all. We indicated that Jesus Christ's revelation for the 21st century, A Course in Miracles, does not teach us to do with our mind, but to UNdo our habits of mind. We experience unbelievable miracles by resting in trust and not engaging our mind whatsoever.

This month we will attempt to disengage one of the ego's greatest doing devices: question asking.

You might remember Yoda trying to teach Luke Skywalker in "Return of the Jedi." Luke needed to learn he already knows everything he needs to know in the now moment. He could not have come to experience his perfect now moment knowingness if he hadn't totally released the ego habit of asking questions. So in the movie we enjoyed scene after scene of Luke lapsing into his addiction of asking while Yoda again and again offers the same Jedi response: "No questions!"

Jesus Christ's Course puts it this way: "That is why the Holy Spirit never questions. His sole function is to undo the questionable and thus lead to certainty. The certain are perfectly calm, because they are not in doubt. They do not raise questions, because nothing questionable enters their minds. This holds them in perfect serenity, because this is what they share, knowing what they are." (ACIM Text Chap. 7)

You already know this, though maybe you still like to pretend you don't.

And therein lies the problem. Remember, the ego constantly tries to convince you that you are not who you really are. You are not really infinite mind who knows everything. You are not even a spiritual being who is automatically aware of everything you need to know to operate perfectly in the now moment. The ego wants you to pretend you have a minuscule little mind which really has no choice but to ask questions to learn things.

(Listen inside. What do you hear? If you hear a defense of asking questions, you may be more stuck than you think.)

From the Holy Spirit's way of seeing things, a so-called "human mind" addicted to asking questions is simply expressing arrogance, ultimately from a secret motive of hatred, since peace would have no reason whatsoever to ask:

"Attempt to solve no problems but within the Holy Instant's surety. For there the problem will be answered and resolved. Outside, there will be no solution, for there is no answer there that could be found. Nowhere outside a single, simple question is ever asked. The world can only ask a double question, with many answers, none of which will do. It does not ask a question to be answered, but only to restate its point of view. All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a question asked. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it is an answer in itself. A double question asks and answers, both attesting the same thing, in different form." (ACIM Text Chapter 27)

To an advanced teacher of God it is obvious that question asking does not arise from any need to know. It is simply the insanity of ego raising its voice in the hopes that making enough noise heckling God will serve to mask its own confused state.

In the unedited version of the Course, Jesus tells Helen Schucman: "The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-separation psyche which man created for himself. It is capable of asking valid questions, but not of perceiving wholly valid answers, because these are cognitive, and cannot be perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind is confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It has to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself." (ACIM Text Chap. 3)

Notice the Course just gave the addict something to grasp onto for justifying the addiction to question asking: Christ's statement that the ego is capable of asking valid questions. But that's not the point of the above passage. Being capable has nothing to do with necessity. There is simply no need to ask questions thought up by the intellect, and in fact doing so is a delaying device of the ego.

In the Bible we read of the scribe who really grasped that his mind needed to quit questioning and focus only on God ... and Jesus indicates he will delay himself not much longer:

"And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after durst ask him any question." (Mark 12:34)

Those addicted to asking questions will also attempt to support their addictions using those portions of the Course which talk about allowing to be open to question that which we've always believed. "Questioning delusions is the first step in undoing them." But the questioning here referred to, impulses rising from deep within which undo rather than seek formulated answers, are a different kind of "questioning" than the addict's obsessive compulsion of the engaged intellect. Notice how in the unedited version Jesus directs Helen to put quotation marks around "questioning mind:"

"The 'questioning mind' perceives itself in time, and therefore looks for future answers. The unquestioning mind is closed merely because it believes the future and the present will be the same. This establishes an unchanged state, or stasis. This is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that the future will be WORSE than the present, and this fear inhibits the tendency to question at all." (ACIM Text Chap. 3)

You might say there is questioning and there is asking questions ... and they are not the same. Asking questions is the ego's attempt to pretend it does not already know what is needed, while questioning is the act of turning within and "hearing" or "feeling" exactly what we really need to know any given moment. Turning within for answers without questions was Luke Skywalker's training and eventual mastery.

So our goal with this month's message is to take control of our mind and let this addiction be cured. We make a commitment to train ourselves as Luke Skywalker was trained by Yoda. We choose to watch our intellect, and when our intellect begins to ask a question which has no reason to be asked we say to it:

"Stop! Trust!
No questions!"