if i'm feeling confused on an issue, it helps to clarify by adopting an extreme viewpoint and then an opposing one to balance the other. then if i adopt both viewpoints i can move up to the top of the triangle to hold neither but empathise with both. that doesn't always work but it's a good exercise.
it's more a thinking man's fundamentalism than actually living by either viewpoint, more a projector overlay of what i would think were i confined to either pole.
does anyone else do this?
I was in a very 'exciting' discussion last night where their were two extremes 'discussed' and then I shut up and when into a meditation.
I meditated on what I was saying and then completely sat in my other/selves shoes for about five minutes. I thought all those thoughts from the other point of view and assumed them as if they were mine for the moment.
I broke down in apology and forgiveness afterwards when I really felt the damage I was doing by not understanding or even trying to understand my other/self.
I realized I am one with both extremes and then accepted them both and used for myself what viewpoint was most beneficial. While still accepting the other viewpoints as part of me.
Quote:In truth there is no right or wrong. There is no polarity for all will be, as you would say, reconciled at some point in your dance through the mind/body/spirit complex which you amuse yourself by distorting in various ways at this time. This distortion is not in any case necessary. It is chosen by each of you as an alternative to understanding the complete unity of thought which binds all things. You are not speaking of similar or somewhat like entities or things. You are every thing, every being, every emotion, every event, every situation. You are unity. You are infinity. You are love/light, light/love. You are. This is the Law of One.
(01-17-2013, 03:58 PM)MarcRammer Wrote: [ -> ]I thought all those thoughts from the other point of view and assumed them as if they were mine for the moment.
I broke down in apology and forgiveness afterwards when I really felt the damage I was doing by not understanding or even trying to understand my other/self.
I would think that understanding the view from the "other" would allow you a better understanding of how to communicate the differences and what may lie hidden from their own perception.
I tried. And it didn't go so well. Other/self wishes to live in ignorance of itself and not be bothered with questions of existence, so I am left in a place of not abridging free will by discussing differences.
It leaves me a strange place of me offering services where none are requested.
Of course you have multiple viewpoints. Different aspects of yourself have different needs/desires. When there is differences/conflict of viewpoints, that's when you are most likely to experience ambivalence (e.g., on one had I think/feel ____ and on the other hand I think/feel ___).
Sometimes viewpoints are used universally. So when you're in a new situation where the viewpoint doesn't apply anymore, you try to use it but it doesn't make sense. (e.g., when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail and you try to hammer everything in sight).
Working on becoming aware, understanding, and accepting the various aspects of self and integrating them might help to see things in a flexible way. You become more aware of context of situations and able to adjust viewpoints etc. Most importantly, diametrically or radically conflicting viewpoints are more in the middle of that triangle... or maybe totally different.