Inquiry means you have to be as in touch with your experience as you can be, live and in the moment. Being in touch means that you are really in your experience. You are not lying on the beach looking out at the sea. You are not sitting at home watching a video of someone else diving. You are not swiping through photos of your diving trip from last year. No, you are getting right into the water to explore for yourself.
The easiest way to practise getting in touch is to connect with a part of your experience that is recognisably in the present, and you will use the immediate sensations of your arms, legs, and senses for this. These sensations are actually here, they are really present. Being in touch with the immediate flow of these sensations is immersing yourself in the water of your inner sea. It takes you from floating on the surface to fully submerging.
From Diving in the Inner Ocean, chapter five
Getting in touch is the crucial foundation. There is no inquiry without being in touch with the immediacy of your experience… You can think about or analyse your experience as much as you like, but if you are not consciously and palpably in touch with what you are exploring, or you do not become more palpably in touch during the course of the exploration, there will be little or no transformation. You will at best add a few more thoughts and ideas to your repertoire. The true power of inquiry to reveal your deeper potentials will remain hidden.
From Diving in the Inner Ocean, chapter five