Thoughts on Perspective

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

My brother and I have been having conversations about perspective. I suggested to him that it may be possible that personal prspective is all there is. I asked him, how can the Observer not observe?

My brother replied that he believes there are 3 versions of Reality; mine, yours and what really happened. He proported that since we use our perspective to evaluate a situation, and since our perspective is tainted with our emotional and intellectual beliefs, we could not be capable of objectivity. Or in other words, we cannot know perspective that is not clouded in our personal judgments.

I thought about this for a while. The possible ramifications were staggering to me. I realised that if this is true, then what we call Reality IS a creation of our personal beliefs about what really is happening. And when we want to know the truth, what we may really be asking is to more fully understand why we have chosen to view a specific event in a specific way?

As a parent of a small child, I want to meditate on this point because I feel that it may be important for how I am raising my son. As I teach him how and why, am I simply just changing his perspectie to meet mine? And if this is true, what personal beliefs am I tainting my perspective with so that I can even come to these specific conclusions?

As I explore this, I felt compelled to share with all of you.

Namaste