Spacecruiser Inquiry

By Hameed Ali

"Many ways and paths exist to lead people to completeness and freedom. In this book we will look at one of those ways. We will explore how inquiry can open our experience to true understanding and how this understanding can become so deep that it unfolds the fullness of our potential." (pg. 7)

"Inquiry begins by looking at our present experience, but it is a looking that must embody openness. Instead of taking our perceived discrimination as final, inquiry says, "I know what I see, but I acknowledge that I do not know whether what I see is all." You cannot begin to inquire into a perception if you think you know all there is to know about it. The moment you think that you know, the door to inquiry closes. So inquiry begins from a not-knowing, from recognizing ant observing something in yourself that you do not understand. This lack of comprehension is not a resignation to ignorance but an acknowledgement of ignorance that has implicit in it an openness to know, an oneness to comprehend, and openness to find out what is going on in your direct experience." (pg. 17)

"Throughout this book, I use some concepts from science fiction to help illustrate inquiry because I find them specifically illuminating for understanding inquiry as a journeying. Spacecruiser Inquiry is the name I sometimes use for the vehicle of this spiritual path-the practice of inquiry. When you begin doing inquiry, you are learning how to use this vehicle for traveling in your own inner space. Spacecruiser Inquiry is a gift to you from your own true nature, a method of self-understanding that is designed to reveal deeper and deeper truths about who you are and what reality is." (pg. 48)

"The heart's love of the truth is not a truth of an idea. It is not a matter of trying to live according to an ideal. It's not a motive that comes from the mind. It is an impulse from the depths of the soul, a deeply felt motive from the heart. It is not that we think and deliberate and decide that truth is good for us, so we end up wanting it. Love of the truth is not utilitarian. The truth often ends up being utilitarian, but that is not what inspires the right attitude or the journey. The correct attitude is that of a lover who wants to be close to the beloved." (pg. 126)

"Thinking of guidance as a voice or a person telling you do this or that indicates that you are not in touch with your own optimizing force. You are identifying with a child who is in need of a parent's guiding hand for wisdom and direction. But the reality of our Being is that we have an inner force, an inner life that wants to express itself and actualize itself. And it is constantly doing that- in all kinds of ways, some successful, some not. Guidance is then a matter of recognizing which ways are successful and which ways aren't. We need to know where our unfoldment has gotten bogged down, and how. That means that we really need to listen and receive the manifestation of the optimizing force in experience. Only through understanding these impressions can we begin to recognize the messages of guidance-signposts along the path of our continuing development." (pg. 206)

"Playfulness not only brings in a sense of lightness; it also makes things move, makes thing fluid, keeps things from getting fixed, which is necessary to avoid getting stuck in rigidities. To play is to experiment with a light heart. And experimentation is nothing but a disciplined form of play. So experimentation-such as doing trial runs or trying one thing after another-is a valid approach to inquiry. If you're experiencing something and you don't know what it is, it's okay to make a hypothesis or theory and then check it out to discover if it's the truth. That's the way scientists inquire." (pg. 256)

"Power gives all the essential qualities an added force, efficiency, and speed. But what actually is the power of Being? The power of Being is just and active manifestation of peace, a dynamic application of stillness. It is not a pushing, it is not a destructiveness. When peace touches the soul, it simply stills it. All of her activities, agitation, and reactions simply dissolve the moment the presence of stillness touches them. They are annihilated. That is the power of stillness, the Peace aspect of Essence. So the power of our Being is an annihilating force, which annihilates ego attitudes and positions by revealing that they don't truly exist. The power of Peace takes everything back to its original source, which is total stillness." (pg. 327)

"... I have divided objective truth into four kinds, of increasing depth and subtlety: the relative, the essential, the nonconceptual, and the absolute. You can differentiate the kinds of truth in other was, but that's one useful way of doing it. And we can say that truth changes according to your situation and perspective. Every perspective has truth, regardless how limited. And this means that it is possible to use a gradual method of investigation that will reveal more truth, deeper truth, more fundamental truth, as the investigation continues." (pg. 350)