Aims Part 2
January 5, 2026
Aims Part 2: The Aim to Be Curious
From our first days of life, curiosity helps us survive. As infants, we instinctively search for nourishment. As adults, our curiosity matures into the wish to know and to understand what would otherwise remain hidden.
In spiritual consciousness, curiosity becomes one of our most vital aims. It sharpens our perception of the outer world, but far more importantly, it opens the doorway to our inner world. When we ask why we feel what we feel or why we reacted the way we did, we are practicing true spiritual health. Curiosity allows us to see where our energy flows and whether it supports our awakening.
Real curiosity is not about judging or gathering data. It is simply the willingness to notice what is happening inside us and in the world around us. When curiosity arises from the soul rather than the inner critic, it brings clarity to our thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors. And if we wish to use these insights to improve our spiritual walk, we can.
A spiritually grounded question that expresses our curiosity in the world might be: What draws me to this interest in peacemaking, or oil drilling, or baby dolls, or tennis? And what does it reveal about my life force and purpose?
As we gently ask these kinds of questions over time, our inner map becomes clearer. We begin to see how everything within us is connected or disconnected to our soul and its purpose. Honest curiosity reveals why we react in particular ways, and we then can adapt to reality rather than let our egos demand that things and people be as we want them.
Howard, a directee in spiritual direction, experienced unexplainable sadness when he was around a particular person. Only when he became sincerely curious about why that one person made him sad, did he discover that his sadness was grief over the loss of person who reminded him of her. The loss was not resolved. Beneath that grief lay old wounds of rejection and loneliness. His curiosity did not change what he felt; it simply revealed the truth. And in that truth, he found the beginning of real healing.
To aim to be curious is to meet each inner state of ours with openness. By knowing ourselves, we find that mending our expectations and misperceptions brings wholeness instead of our grieving that the world is not what we want it to be. And it saves us from acting unconsciously. Curiosity helps put many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.
Spiritual practice: After a period of quiet reflection, take time to articulate your own philosophy of truth. What does truth mean to you? What does it require? How do you wish to embody it?
Self-inquiry: How does your commitment to truth help prevent the spread of the power of lies—in yourself, in relationships, and in the broader world?
Prayer:
Dear God, Make me an instrument of Your truth. Amen.
