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.You may then live in a house, but it has novalue as yours; you keep it tidy, but you have no identification withit.Similarly with your son, your daughter, your wife.This non-identification is love.Therefore a mind that has no identificationthrough continuance is a mind that is really creative - which is notthe creativeness of writing books, inventing new schemes, and allthe rest of that nonsense.A mind that is creative is limitless, andonly such a mind is not afraid of living and therefore not afraid ofdying.October 28, 1956NEW DELHI 6TH PUBLIC TALK 31STOCTOBER 1956It seems to me that what is important is not the problem, but themind that approaches the problem.We have many problems ofevery kind: the growth of tyranny, the multiplication of conflicts inthe individual as well as in the collective life, and the utter lack ofany directive purpose in life except that which is artificially createdby society or by the individual himself.Our many problems seemto be increasing, they are not diminishing.The more civilizationhas progressed, the greater has become the complexity of theproblems of living, and I think most of us are aware that thevarious ways of life which most people follow - the Communistway of life, the so-called religious way of life, and the purelymaterialistic or progressive way of life, the life of manypossessions - have not solved these problems.Seeing all this, thoseof us who are at all serious must have considered the question ofhow to bring about a change, not only in ourselves and in ourrelationship with particular individuals, but also in our relationshipwith the collective, with society.Our problems multiply, but as Isaid, I don't think the problem, whatever it be, is the real issue.Thereal issue, surely, is the mind that approaches the problem.If my mind is incapable of dealing with a problem, and I act, theproblem multiplies, does it not? That is a fairly obvious fact.Andseeing that whatever it does with regard to the problem onlymultiplies the problem, what is the mind to do? Do you understandthe issue? The problem - whether it be the problem of God, theproblem of starvation, the problem of collective tyranny in thename of government, and so on - exists at different levels of ourbeing, and we approach it hoping to solve it, which I think is awrong approach altogether, because we are laying emphasis on theproblem.It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself,and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve.If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great andcomplex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem interms of its own pettiness.If I have a little mind and I think ofGod, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I mayclothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it.It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem ofbread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem ofrelationship, the problem of death.These are all enormousproblems, and we approach them with a small mind, we try toresolve them with a mind that is very limited.Though it hasextraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle,cunning thought, the mind is still petty.It may be able to quoteMarx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still asmall mind; and a small mind confronted with a complex problemcan only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore theproblem, the misery increases.So the question is, can the mind thatis small, petty, be transformed into something which is not boundby its own limitations?Are you following what I am talking about, or am I not makingmyself clear? Take, for example, the problem of love, which isvery complex.Though I may be married, have children, unlessthere is that sense of beauty, the depth and clarity of love, life isvery shallow, without much meaning; and I approach love with avery small mind.I want to know what it is, but I have all kinds ofassumptions about it, I have already clothed it with my petty mind.So the problem is not how to understand what love is, but to freefrom its own pettiness the mind that approaches the problem, andthe minds of most people are petty.By a petty mind I mean a mind that is occupied.Do youunderstand? A mind that is occupied with God, with plans, withvirtue, with how to carry out what certain authorities say abouteconomics or religion; a mind that is occupied with itself, with itsown development, with culture, with following a certain way ofexistence; a mind that is occupied with an identity, with a country,belief, or ideology - such a mind is a petty mind.When you are occupied with something, what happenspsychologically, inwardly? There is no space in your mind, isthere? Have you ever watched your own mind in operation? If youhave, you will know that it is everlastingly busy with itself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]