The difference between a stupid mind and a wise mind

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): There is a difference between a stupid mind, a dull mind, and a wise mind. A stupid mind is very used to its being, the stupid mind is very well adjusted to life. It sees no paradox there, it sees no contradictions, it’s a very nicely patterned, grooved mind. Its patterns fit nicely with the patterns of the world. So we said it is a very well adjusted mind.

The wise man is a kind of a misfit. So as you are sitting here, there is a deep wonderment in a few eyes. This wonderment is a sense of misfit. This wonderment is about seeing something new. Whereas there are others who are alright with things as they are, ‘Oh! we are alright, I am alright.’

Listener (L): Because they got properly adjusted.

AP: Stupid man does not see any paradoxes, any contradictions, it is not sensitive to even its own torture. It is being tortured day and night but it has no love towards itself, no sensitivity. So it behaves as if there is nothing wrong, it behaves as if everything is proper and alright. It is so blind that it doesn’t see its own wounds and the blood oozing from them.

It says, ‘No, what is the need to change? What is the need to realize? What is the need to seek the Truth? After all, everything is fine and okay.’ And sometimes the crudeness goes to the extent that if you try to display that no, things are not fine, things are not okay. It wants to run away, it wants to hide.

It requires a deep faith to admit that things are not alright, that there is suffering. Because if you do that you could do something about it and that generates fear in the mind. That if you do something all hell may just break loose. To not do something about it, you feign, you pretend that there is no disease at all. If I am very scared of surgery then I will hide my disease. Right? Because if I accept that I have a disease then I will have to go under the knife.

I have no faith in the surgeon, so what do I do? I pretend that there is no disease. That’s our story. We have no faith that there is somebody who can rid us of our ailments. So we just keep pretending, ‘Oh, we are alright, our life is well adjusted. No…