What is the difference between inquiry and psychoanalysis? When is it inquiry, and when is it psychoanalysis?
What do we mean by inquiry? There is a general activity we call inquiry, or discussion. What does this involve? From the outset we are of the mind we are different people, in separate positions, you and me, him and her. From our person, self, identity, psyche, we have our separate, individual points of view. We are interacting and exchanging words.
There is a capacity for developing ideas, building up a picture with information, and extending our knowledge and ability for self expression. We do this between people, meeting directly, or on the phone, on the computer, or with books etc. We can also study and become more professional. Working form the psyche, the inquiry between people is at one level, casual, and then at other levels, it is psychoanalysis. What we relate to are the separate, divided positions, and continue from a viewpoint of separate identities, psyches.
Even within a general activity talking with people, discussing ideas about life, inquiring into a common humanity, the discussion is stuck in the viewpoint and performance of a divided psyche.
Through the psyche we maybe wanting to find or understand some social or religious cohesion, or conversely want to be detached from these, and want to express an independence. From the everyday separate, divided position, either casually or professionally, we donât question this basic function of a psyche because this is the way of life in society.
If thought with time, is seen as a stream or river flowing through the human brain, each brain will express the thought / time in different ways or styles, depending on its knowledge, experiences, inclinations, etc. Opinions, judgements, criticisms vary in expression and contemplation but they all are part of the same stream, the ânetwork of wordsâ? Is the brain bound, caught in this network? Is this the âstreamâ that K. has said , must be âstepped outâ of?
Understandably, if you believe (as I do) that we have evolved to survive, physically and mentally, more than to âsee the truth.â Too much intense questioning skews the mechanisms responsible for survival, throws a wrench in the works. And questioning the psyche is as intense as it gets.
(The above was written, of course, by the nobody psyche, which probably feels nice and warm now at having wrapped up the matter in a neat package with a shiny golden bow.)
On the contrary, the âwrenchâ in the form of psychological thought (self) is already in âthe worksâ. And our survival is in jeopardy as a result of it.
The self will fight tooth and nail to resist the notion that it is to blame for the woes of itself and the world. And the self is an almost impossible-to-beat street fighter, itâs been in training for millennia upon millennia and is not at all squeamish about fighting dirty!
This is where choice less awareness comes in. a not-doing, non-changing, non judgement, non-resistance, etc. This demands a totally different energy than the energy of thought/self. That is what weâre exploring here. Any resistance at all strengthens the self-image.
The self will fight indefatigably against choiceless awareness or any other mode of being that endangers the selfâs dominion. We all know this, all have the scars to prove it.
How does awareness endanger the self?
Truly choiceless awareness skirts the self, doesnât it? (Not being rhetorical.) The self is built on choosing and on looking to the past/future, rather than simply being aware. When choiceless awareness is happening, the self is (imo) watching from the sidelines (unconscious) and getting more and more suspicious and anxious and even angry. âHow dare they marginalize ME!â
(You get that Iâm devilâs advocating here, right? Iâm not trying to say that the situation is hopeless, rather that itâs highly resistant to change, and that this should be looked at.)
If it skirts anything, it isnât choice less, is it?
The self is made of choices, right? So, by definition, choiceless awareness is not the self. (Thatâs what I meant by skirting.) When the self sees choiceless awareness doing its thing, it gets freaked out by it, feels its role as king of the organism is being threatened. This is what I mean by awareness endangering the selfâs dominion.
Youâre describing a battle between good and evil, true and false, but isnât the self duality, having nothing to fight but itself since duality is the conflict of opposites?
The dualistic mind is a closed system that knows nothing about what is beyond the conflict that it is, so it can only get âfreaked outâ by what it can conceive of, imagine, but can do nothing about what is beyond its comprehension.
Good, letâs take fight out of the metaphor:
If it feels in danger of extinction, the self will do whatever it takes to neutralize the danger. It canât live comfortably with the thought of its own annihilation, and living comfortably is its goal. Itâs like Monk in that delightful show from a while back, he couldnât live with the disorder of a mystery being unsolved, he was compelled to solve it. See, tv is wise. 
The dualistic mind thrives on threat, and thrives on the reward if gets from rising to the challenge. It is a closed system that knows nothing of consciousness without duality, and can only feel threatened and rewarded by its own thoughts. It has no fear of what it canât imagine or comprehend, and it canât imagine or comprehend consciousness without conflict.
What I hear is that ânobodyâ is saying that the self, âmeâ will resist this action weâre calling âchoiceless awarenessâ because he (it) thinks that this is a threat to himself (itself) and then will somehow psychologically retaliate against it. But isnât that retaliation or resistance or whatever, isnât that just more for this choice less awareness to observe? There seems to be a confusion here that needs to be clarified if possible.
Iâm not sure what the confusion is, maybe Iâm too confused to see it? 
I donât see why both canât happen, the self feeling threatened seeks to reestablish dominion, awareness sees this.
We might be talking past each other or we might be disagreeing on this, Iâm not sure which. From lots of experience, Iâm convinced that my self has a very sensitive early detection alarm that starts beeping wildly when a different mode of being, thinking, feeling seems to be in the offing, and does everything in its considerable power to nullify this or keep it tamed, an interesting and amusing experiment.
If youâre convinced of anything, your âsensitive early detection alarmâ is not working.
You have never felt a challenge to the authority of the self? I feel it quite often when I am working with the self. I assumed pretty much everyone doing self inquiry did.
Of course. One is always trying to prove, defend, and justify oneâs imagined identity, and the fear of being exposed for the fraud that one is, is always present. But the possibility of awakening to what actually is, the end of everything you know and believe, is unimaginable, and you can only fear what you can imagine. .