"To inquire, question, and contemplate is a sacred act. It is the way that consciousness reaches down into the mysterious and unknown terrain of our collective psyche and beyond to its origin. When a curious mind becomes wedded to its silent depth and source within the ground of the psyche, we are engaging in sacred inquiry, an inquiry that can reach deep into the numinous domain of our being and reveal our essence.

"When the curiosity of inquiry is united with an inner silence of being, it gives rise to the numinous source and essence of our psyche. To carry a question into inner silence is an act pregnant with revelatory power and potential. It must be undertaken with patience, devotion, and humility. You cannot force or coerce insight. If you do, you will only end up with the mind's creative power to delude itself. One must hold faithful vigil before the awesome mystery of being and be willing to sustain the creative tension that arises while one devotedly attends to both the sacred question and the inner silence from which it arises.

"Although this has been a book of questions and answers, you may have noticed that I rarely give comprehensive answers to people's questions. I give just enough of an answer or direction to spark deeper insight by the questioner, for our deepest existential questions do not need answers as much as they need insight. In sacred inquiry, we are not looking for more information to clutter our mind with; we are looking for experiential insight and wisdom. In short, we are looking for a transformation of consciousness that awakens us from the imagined confines of separation to the numinous ground and origin of our being.

"Take from this book not only specific answers to various questions — though I hope that they may be of some use to you — take rather the spirit of the open question and the fearlessness to stretch out beyond the known, deep into the silent and powerful presence of your being. You are not here to live out someone else's answers to life's biggest questions; you are here to help eternity forge a way into your own life.

"Sacred inquiry is something we can be in service to every day by being committed to open-mindedness and openheartedness in every moment. Like anything else in life, it takes practice and commitment in order to be effective. But it can transform your life and help the lives all around you.

"When an open and curious mind is brought into the inner silence of being, an alchemy takes place which has the potential to transform consciousness in ways hardly imaginable."