Bob Schwartz

In any area, when learning, I seek teachers over time. Eventually, I may narrow that down, not ignoring the value of the others, but recognizing that as we progress, as we change, as everything changes, some are more fitting for immediate study, some less.

This has been the case with my religious life. I am neither a practitioner nor advocate for flitting from one beautiful sweet flower to another or to staying with one tradition or teacher for a lifetime. It should be a matter, as I repeat regularly, for pursuing and testing what works. One should never be reluctant to follow a single narrow road or to follow different paths that may look to others like mindless wandering. If we clearly see, not easy, that the single narrow road and the multiple paths are all one beneficial way.

Study all, study some, study one, study none.

This can apply to any area of learning. You can follow this in any direction. Start with one, expand to some or many, come back to a few or just one. Nothing will be lost or wasted, provided you keep them all carefully in mind.

But what about “study none”? Is there a point at which, whatever the path or paths, you can or should stop studying? This is subtle, so subtle that I am challenged beyond my reach. All along, wherever you are on the path, you are always studying none. One of my earliest influences, Sri Ramana Maharshi, had a nice way of dealing with this, a way consistent with many other traditions.

When asked a question about practice or philosophy by a student, he directed the student to ask “Who is asking the question?” That is, any investigation begins, and ends, with investigation of the mind asking the question. Whatever the subject, not just the spiritual but in all areas, the study is that. Of course there is much to learn in any area. That is why we have teachers, schools, and vast bodies of knowledge. But our relation to all that knowledge, to all others and to ourselves, is beyond and beneath all those studies. Which, in a crude way, is what I mean by study none.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz