There is an extraordinary paradox in the spiritual life that any sincere aspirant must encounter. The paradox is that anyone who is a sincere seeker wants Real Life, Truth, but the very act of wanting it is produced by having imagined what Real Life is, and then we attempt to imitate what the mind has imagined for ourselves.
The conundrum is that you can't want what can only be given to you, and yet without that want, nothing can happen. So how does one discover a real relationship with Truth? Where does one go from here?
We must learn what it means to "ask" for a Real Life. To ask means that I live with this longing within me, but I do not answer it with anything that I can dream for myself. The answers that we can dream for ourselves are very limited, taken from the content of what we already know and have already experienced. If you ask, you will receive--but you must learn what it means to ask.