The desire to seek is inevitable,’ stated L. ‘You might just as well ask why we breathe, or why the hair grows. The urge to seek is as inevitable as day and night.’ When you assert so definitely that the urge to seek is inevitable, the discovery of the truth of the matter is blocked, is it not? When you accept anything as final, determined, does not all inquiry come to an end?
We are all seeking, but we have never, it seems, asked ourselves why we seek. We are not discussing the object of our search, whether noble or ignoble, but we are trying to find out, are not we, why we seek at all? What is this urge, this everlasting compulsion? Is it inevitable? Has it an unending continuity? ‘If we do not seek,’ asked Y, ‘will we not become lazy and just stagnate?’ Conflict in one form or another appears to be the way of life, and without it we think that life would have no meaning. To most of us, the end of struggle is death. Search implies struggle, conflict, and is this process essential to man, or is there a different ‘way’ of life in which there are no search and struggle? Why and what do we seek?
Is not the individual ever seeking to survive, to have continuity, by being identified with something greater or nobler than himself? ‘Is there not a point or a moment at which we suddenly find ourselves without search, without struggle?’ asked M.
‘That moment may be merely the result of weariness,’ replied R, ‘a brief pause before plunging again into the vicious circle of search and fear.’ ‘Or it may be outside of time,’ said M. Why do we seek, and is it possible for this search to come to an end? Unless we discover for ourselves why we seek and struggle, the state in which search has come to an end will remain for us an illusion, without significance..