as is form, so is action

By the time we reach the end of today, each of us will have asked approx 1000 questions.

By the time we reach the end of our lives, each of us will have asked approx 25,000,000 questions.

Let me begin with a small account.

Well ! The sun had just begun this morning's punctual labor and was showering gentle bright hope. The wooden door received a sudden childish knock. It made me wonder, "who?"

I opened the door. Our youngest neighbor (all of just year and a half) offered a curious smile and walked in.

Each time he comes to our house, he is in a mood to teach.

And he carries his favorite big basket of "What?". These are just set of some questions crafted in broken-unfinished sounds ...yet to take the shape of what we call as words, but enough to set deep inquiries. His questions are around "yeh kya hai?" as in "what is this?"

With the use of "what", he tries to build his personal understanding of the world. And he uses the "what" so humanly enough that he gets us to answer the how-when-where-why too. Observing him offered me some of the following rough insights:

...nobody has yet trained him as to why he should so frequently use "questions and answers", and yet he innately does so and uses it often to get around his world, Curiosity led "Question-answer" seem to be an innate essential tool.

...he does not know many of the objects around (lets take these as a representative of things that are unfamiliar), and he has an innate need to familiarize them. Familiarity seems to breed order. And it seems so because after having asked the questions and having received the answers, he seems to feel some sense of accomplishment or completion, and a signal to move on to something else. Q&A helps familiarize the constantly uncertain world, and develop some form of order.

Hence in some ways, q&a is an innate tool to familiarize with the uncertain, for creating an order.

But are we reaching harmony or order in our lives.

We have all asked so many questions all of our life.
And we have so many answers with us.

However we continue to ask questions all the time.

Many times inside of our minds.

Some times to people around.

So, what is a question?

That which we know is not a question.
That which we commonly accept is not a question.

That which is certain is not a question.

That which we do not know, or know with a degree of uncertainty or with a further degree to explore, is a question.

That which is not a consensus yet, is a question.

That which is uncertain, is a question.

Thus, we have so many questions.

We have built our own worlds.
And we have a lot of transactions to do everyday.

Of targets, money, desires, reciprocity, opinions.

And these seem to give rise to transactional questions.

And our experience suggests that transactional questions are a super maze.

Ever growing. Ever entangling. Ever endless. Ever gripping.

Then there are some other questions.

Of our origins, of life and death, of purpose and pledge, of role-reach of reason.

Of the blur between objective and subjective.
Of complementarity of right-wrong-good-bad-like-dislike.

These are called by many as questions that can transform us, hence called "transformational or transcendental questions".

Are these two separate quests?
No. Certainly not.
Every question that we ask at anytime in our lives, can be framed in both a transactional framework and also a transformational framework.

Transactions are imperative, as we keep performing our duties.

Transformation is a choice.

Transformational questions will help to bring out the best in us in the transactions.

We can not get through the transactional without making harmony with the help of the transformational questions.

If we frequently feel uncertain, anxious, helpless, stressed, dissonant, discord, agitated, jealous, meaningless, then perhaps its time to take the quest led by transformational questions along with the transactional questions.

As is your form, so is your action.

As is your transformation, so is your transaction.

Happy Trans.