November 24, 2007

Your Point of View is Yours

Your point of view is your version of truth, which is one of the many acceptable perceptions of reality. Reality is unknown.

If your point of view is different from someone else's point of view, you may choose to argue in favour of your point of view. Or, you can try and understand each other's point of view. Argument will only lead to disagreement because each point of view is correct from its own perspective. If you understand each other's point of view, both of you will end up with a much richer common point of view. Even if you are not able to see each other's point of view, then simply accept the other point of view to be as valid as your own,and move ahead.

The story of "6 Blind Men and the Elephant" illustrates this beautifully.
6 blind men go to a zoo to form an idea of the elephant
One touched the tail and found it similar to a Rope
Second touched the leg and found it similar to a Tree
Third touched the side and found it similar to a Wall
Fourth touched the ear and found it similar to a Fan
Fifth touched the tusk and found it similar to a Spear
Sixth touched the trunk and found it similar to a Snake
The six blind men argued endlessly to support their own point of view but could not reach any conclusion on what an elephant is like

Can you imagine the common point of view that would have emerged if the 6 blind men decided to understand and/or accept each other's point of view?

3 comments:

wheatgerm said...

inspiring

Anonymous said...

Well written article.

Anonymous said...

The example story tells - "6 Blind Men and the Elephant", that something has been taken out of context and a comparison made. Each of blind man chose to live with what he thinks it is, did not chase the experience and develop a correct understanding. They failed to know, there exists a something called elephant. And a lack of knowledge about what it is, resulted in different point of views. If there was a 7th person who could see, he would have denied. He would have said, its not a tree, its the leg, and elephants have trunk, its not like any other wall, its not what you think it is.
A similar experience we all have, when we fail to see the truth. There cannnot be a 100 versions of truth.

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