Stirring the Mind

      Revolt

        Jiddu Krishnamurti

Now, society is always trying to control, to shape, to mould the thinking of the young.  From the moment you are born and begin to receive impressions, your father and mother are constantly telling you what to do and what not to do, what to believe and what not to believe; you are told that there is God, or that there is no God but the State and that some dictator is its prophet.  From childhood these things are poured into you, which means that your mind-- which is very young, impressionable, inquisitive, curious to know, wanting to find out-- is gradually being encased, conditioned, shaped so that you will fit into the pattern of a particular society and not be a revolutionary.  Since the habit of patterned thinking has already been established in you, even if you do "revolt" it is within the pattern.  It is like prisoners revolting in oreder to have better food, more conveniences--- but always within the prison.  When you seek God, or try to find out what is right government, it is always within the pattern of society, which says, "This is true and that is false, this is good and that is bad, this is the right leader and these are the saints."  So your revolt, like the so-called revolution brought about by ambitious or very clever people, is always limited in the past.  That is not revolt, that is not revolution: it is merely heightened activity, a more valiant struggle within the pattern.  Real revolt, true revolution is to break away from the pattern and to inquire outside of it.

From Think on These Things, 1964

The Experience of Philosophy by Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin

  Wiseman Sutoroo explores and posts the ideas, views or theories of various philosophers just to--- Stir the Mind.