India or Bharata has always been the land of seekers; and, when we seek, we question. The questions that we ask and the answers we get create impressions on our mind that eventually makes us who we are. After all, who are we but ourselves just before this present moment?

In my limited existence, I have realised the need to ask the genuine questions and the immaculate power that you inspire within when you get the right answers. As adults, we question less and believe that the questions that we have either will not be heard or are not worthy enough to be heard. At times, we even think them to be foolish. However, we all have been foolish once and it was the time when we were probably the happiest.

It was a time when we were all little children, looking up to people around us, our eyes gleaming with glitter and mouth with questions. We would ask and then ask more; our hunger for knowledge, learning and curiosity knew no bounds. But slowly and slowly our questions started to become irrelevant to the people around us; at our homes, and sadly even at our schools. We started to believe in the loss of value of our own questions and eventually, we became adults and our existence a pandemonious flute of doubts.

History has always told us that the people who dared to ask genuine questions (not just for the sake of it) made all the difference. In his famous speech, when Steve Jobs said “Stay hungy; Stay foolish”, he not only personified his own life but also the beauty of asking questions genuinely. There are three probable ways in which the quest of genuine questioning can be satiated (the list is not exhaustive). First, through already written readings and spoken words of people who had the similar quest; second, discussions with available people around us who had similar experiences (preferably with person/s who is/are a true Guru); and third, by going within your own existence and trying to find the answers there.

In the first two approaches there are chances that you might get diverted to the whims of others’ understanding. Hence, the third aspect becomes the most critical. Whatever you read in a book or hear in a speech; whatever you are being told by the people around you, it has to go under the test of your own wisdom and experience, and your own within must then tell you to either accept or reject. This inner voice knows all the right answers for you; it gets itself heard every time when you ask genuine questions and receive genuine answers. When this listening and telling happens, the real answers to your questions surface in front of your eyes and you get the true text and the real Guru/s.

So, ask those questions that you have today. But make sure that your wisdom and your voice of righteousness are behind it. Never be afraid. If you are a parent or a teacher, inspire your children to ask questions and never belittle them as a response to what they seek. If you are an adult, unmask that cloak of inhibition and start asking questions that you always wanted to ask, irrespective of the weirdness, difficulties and lack of space. Ask for it and it shall come.

“If you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. If you want to change yourself, change your questions.”