Curiosity and a Real Question

"I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious." -- Albert Einstein

Without curiosity sustained by a real question we will never, ever move forward in our explorations of new territory, but only in circles getting our own needs met. Jacob Needleman has suggested that without a “real question” (one that is existentially grounded in a personal need to know), we flounder in a self-referential bog of egoic-desire. By asking a real question that we sense must be answered before we leave this planet, we put ourselves in dialogue with Higher Mind that has perhaps urged us toward the question, the asking, and the search for answers transcendent to the ego. But is this “urge to know” merely a reflection of the ego’s need (in which case we are in a catch-22), or is it some inner response to a vocation to transcend the self in its present configuration? Spiritual tradition asserts the latter, which it believes is the only way out of the vicious circle.