Curiosity as a Spiritual Practice

In his book entitled Curious, Ian Leslie writes, "Curiosity is vulnerable to benign neglect. As we grow older, we tend to become less active explorers of our mental environment, relying on what we’ve learned so far to see us through the rest of the journey. We can also become too preoccupied with the daily skirmishes of existence to take the time to pursue our interests. If you allow yourself to become incurious, your life will be drained of color, interest, and pleasure. You will be less likely to achieve your potential at work or in your creative life. While barely noticing it, you’ll become a little duller, a little dimmer. You may not think it could happen to you, but it can. It can happen to any of us."

How curious are you? Are you passionately curious? Moderately curious? Figure you know all you need to know and are done? Has your curiosity dimmed as you've grown older? These are important questions to consider given that psychologically, curiosity has been shown to enhance intelligence, increase perseverance and grit, and propels us toward deeper engagement in life.

Albert Einstein once said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning… never lose a holy curiosity.” I love that he called it a holy curiosity, something sacred and essential to living and loving life.

Do you remember the story of Zacchaeus? He was the "wee little man" who climbed the Sycamore tree to see Jesus (maybe the old Sunday School tune is now ringing in your head - I'm sorry.) We don't know much about Zacchaeus other than he was rich, a wealthy tax collector, who may or may not have been Jewish. But we do know that he was short. So short that he couldn’t see over the crowd surrounding Jesus as they walked through Jericho. He really, really wanted to see who Jesus was, but realized he didn’t have a chance standing on the side of the road, so he ran up ahead and did what seems to me as somewhat ridiculous for a person of his economic status, he climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus.

What a great deal of curiosity he had! And Jesus met him right where he was, called Zacchaeus down from the tree and invited himself to dinner at his house. Zacchaeus was delighted.

I think Jesus appreciated curiosity. As a great spiritual teacher, Jesus wanted people to learn and grow spiritually, but so often he did it by using parables and stories that made folks think. He didn’t just come right out and give them the answers. In fact, in the gospels, Jesus asks over 300 questions, but of the 183 he was asked, he only directly answered three. He preferred to answer questions with a question of his own, or respond cryptically or with a story. Jesus wanted people to be curious, to think, to feel, to contemplate and to eventually own the answers.

They say that people today are less curious than they used to be. Ironically, the internet has quite a bit to do with this. You would think the world wide web would encourage curiosity, but studies show that people do less research even with more at their fingertips. They look at the most popular articles, at what comes up first in a search, and go with that, not putting in the energy to look deeper. Standardized testing means that teachers are forced to teach in such a way that kids pass a test, it doesn't leave room for more questioning, for changing course or covering things that are of interest, but not on the test. Book banning is rampant these days, led by the fear of people being curious (as if it is a bad thing). And, of course, many churches still don't like folks pushing back on theology and asking too many questions about God and religion.

While Jesus was great about encouraging curiosity and thinking, since the Catholic Church was established, there has been a long period where questioning and curiosity has been discouraged in the church. I've heard many stories over the years of people who dared to question a priest, pastor or Sunday School teacher, only to have their questions squashed. The church has historically wanted people to simply listen and obey. Curiosity was/is a threat to the status quo. What a terrible loss when there is so much to learn about spirituality, religion and God. So much to explore. So much to question!

Curiosity – about anything and everything - is the key to growth, the key to expanding one’s mind and understanding, they key to staying vibrant, vital, interested and interesting. 

Here are some tips to developing your curiosity:

1. Keep an open mind.
2. Don’t take things at face value. Try to dig deeper beneath the surface of what is around you.
3. Ask questions relentlessly. What, why, when, who, where, and how are the best friends of curious people.
4. Don’t label something as boring. Whenever you label something as boring, you close one more door of possibilities.
5. See learning as something fun. If you see learning as a burden, there’s no way you will want to dig deeper into anything.
6. Have diversity in your reading. One easy way to do this is through reading diverse genres and topics. Try to pick a book or magazine on a new subject and let it feed your mind with the excitement of a new world.

Let me leave you with a quote from the wizard, Merlin, in The Once and Future King:

“The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That’s the only things that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn… That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

Be curious. Ask questions. Delve into life. Let your curiosity feed all of you – mind, body and spirit. And may it bring you greater vitality and zest for living.

Love & Light!

Kaye