The Mind

Petty Mind…

The last time we met we were talking about the whole problem of effort, whether through effort there can be any Radical change; whether it is possible for a mind which is in a state of self-contradiction to put an end to that contradiction through any form of coercive discipline, through any form of suppression, through any endeavour to overcome it. 

We have said that a mind in contradiction must be in a state of effort and we enquired whether inward dissension, inward conflict could ever produce that change which is necessary if we are to see things clearly and live a peaceful, quiet life. 

It seems to me that it is important to understand this issue really deeply - that a small, respectable, petty mind must inevitably create contradiction within itself. 

Life is not petty. We try to reduce life to our own level of pettiness but it is too vast, too enormous, too demanding, too urgent. 

Life presents us with innumerable pressures, challenges which the petty mind cannot deal with and so, unconsciously or consciously, it creates a state of self-contradiction. 

Now can such a petty mind, the respectable mind, through any endeavor bring about a state in which there is no contradiction? That is our problem.

Obviously, life's challenge is too demanding, too enormous, too extraordinarily complex to be solved only at any one particular point. It must be tackled totally, as a whole thing. It cannot be tackled merely from the scientific point of view or from the romantic or the so-called religious point of view which, after all, is nothing but a series of dogmas, beliefs and ceremonies. But the petty mind is caught in all these escapes and it has reduced its environment to a social condition into which it can fit itself. 

Surely you and I can see that life is too extraordinarily beautiful, too deep, too profound to be easily comprehended, and yet with my narrow little mind I am trying to meet it. My little mind which is fearful, anxious, acquisitive, violent, has got so many social and religious sanctions according to which it must live and so there is ever the contradiction between what is and what it thinks should be. And having created this contradiction there is tension, and from that tension endless activity; and I try to reform that activity instead of understanding the petty mind which creates the contradiction. It is like trying to correct my shadow in the sun; I see that the shadow is very sharp and so I furiously scratch at the shadow thinking that thereby I am doing a revolutionary thing.

But the really revolutionary thing is to bring about a radical change in the mind itself not in the mere thought which is but a projection of the state of contradiction.


J KRISHNAMURTI

Pune, 3rd Public Talk,14th September 1958

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