Becoming the Questions We Dare to Ask

And Learning to Live with the Unfinished Business of Living

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Aho’ Rajanaka,

I hope this finds you well. The house is getting a new roof. Around here we have to work mindfully with the weather, not only because we aren’t in control but because we never know what tomorrow will bring. Or even today.

I’ve been working steadily, even furiously, to finish a Part Two essay that last Saturday I promised for tomorrow. That would be last Sunday. But I’m not yet comfortable with my dissatisfactions to publish that piece; I may never feel “finished” but readers deserve better than a best effort.

Matters of personal accountability make for an interesting yoga. How much cook-to-burn provides the efficacious ratio of our ardor, the tapas: what are we prepared to do, how much can we do, what are the consequences inside and out? Burn on but don’t burn out. I live for such questions, sure I am unsure of there being only “right” answers. I would not presume to speak for you but I would ask if you would like to come along for the asking.

Yoga isn’t about moderation (except when it is) any more than it’s about transcending limits or breaking boundaries (except when it is). All those matters may well warrant query, but they won’t provide answers that answer to always. Always, like never, is a word best used sparingly. Rather, yoga is about making connection with the questions worth your precious time; it’s about creating the effort to reside in the questions. Answers will change but the best questions will endure, nourish the resolve and the doubt that kindles the fire.

The key is not allowing doubt or hurt or anxiety or some long ago wound unattended to douse your fire, to keep you from the kindling. Keep your fire burning---this is the yoga the Vedic world made its principal symbol of continuing connection.

Surely the fire can burn---do be careful enough---but fire is the symbol of messaging and offers the heat that becomes light. You’re not going to have one without the other. You might burn yourself occasionally too. Light makes for shadow. That’s no crime; it’s what happens.

On receiving my first teaching fellowship I was tasked to place the books for the upcoming course on reserve in the University’s libraries. This involved six libraries spread far and wide. I knew all that but by the time I reached the last, they were locking the doors, I was just a bit too late. Five outta’ six, I’d finish up in the morning. I returned with the news to my mentor who looked up from his desk and said, “I didn’t ask how hard you tried. I asked that you get it done. Today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is a gift you may never open.”

He unceremoniously closed the door, me just standing there. I was left to work out all the ensuing feelings, eager to project some anger ‘cause let’s be honest, tomorrow would have been just fine. I would complete the task in the morning well before any student would be in pursuit of the reserve books. Wasn’t that “good enough” when good enough is enough?

But the lesson was to ask myself if just good enough was who I wanted to be: is the “best” you can do always for the better? Better still to learn how absolutes---the always and the nevers---create a tyranny one should keenly oppose. How do we live with incompleteness and the self-warranted expectation to offer better?

I’m sure there’s also some shadow of anger with that mentor who I love to this day with all my heart. The stakes were low considering such the “failure.” Wasn’t I being called out for something easily handled, even trivial?

Surely I so frequently recount this story because it’s another bit of personal unfinished business. There’s the wound of shame and inadequacy, healed well-enough now to reopen when the occasion arises. Like a box of old photos best opened when you’re as prepared to put them away for yet another reopening. There really is no “getting over it.” We don’t transcend ourselves, we need to learn to live with the all. There’s just opening and reopening.

Of course, that was the point. What if the stakes were higher? What if it really did matter to get this done now, not later. That was the question being raised. It had little to do with books on reserve today or tomorrow. It was about asking who we aspire to be while we still can.

Perhaps I feel remiss to this day because I prefer not to disappoint or to unkeep a “promise.” But now I want to take those shadows as affirmations: sometimes a wee bit of failure reminds you how much you care. Whether the stakes are low, as they are even today with this forthcoming “promised tomorrow” essay, it’s no crime not to be okay with what isn’t quite right. I am counting this discomfort an asset. Krsna more than once reminds that without discomfiture we won’t ask ourselves who we really want to be. It’s not about feeling bad; it’s about doing what we can while we still can.

Feeling not okay isn’t something I want or prefer but I can decide what to make of it. What will the discomfort provide? How to learn? I’m not much interested in forgiveness: I rarely see virtue in it, for any of the parties involved. (This is another topic, for another time.) Rather, I’m interested in how all our feelings inform who we are and who we want to be. I’m interested in what I’ve learned about myself and others---and learning from mistakes is just as hard as learning from any pride justifiably taken in achievement. Both have value when there’s still some learning to be had. Yoga is that learning: it’s not about finalities, it’s about staying in the game so long as you got game.

So today I’m not promising last Sunday’s essay. There’s more work to do and I’m wary of offering another shoddy excuse. What I will do is return to learning what can be learned, whether it be from success or failure.

May we too hold dear the stakes involved, to offer up who we need to be in the ways we can.

The soulful pursuit happens when the learning brings the inner conversation into the open to yourself and with others. We need courage to stay in the conversations that serve the heart, mind our needs, and open to the soul that becomes itself in the again and again (and again): for the soul is inside the questions you are willing to ask.

Then it will be possible to consider too how the sublime becomes a question that works like a verb, what we are doing inside and out. The sublime will no longer be reduced to the goal of our query; no longer must it bear the burden of being the answer. And when if we approach the sublime not to answer our questions or provide resolution to the problems we face, it can become refuge for this vulnerable human form becoming the being worthy of the questions we dare ask.

More soon. As ever, Douglas

&&&

Today, May 31^st 2025:

Hanuman continues in great pursuit of his shadow at 5pm Eastern. Zoom here: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

Tomorrow Sunday Mahabharata, 5pm Eastern. Zoom here:https://rochester.zoom.us/j/314987250