The Art of Perception: Shaping Life’s Perspectives

Story: Father, Children and Train (Source: Google Baba)

Once there was a man travelling by a local train along with his 2 kids. Both the kids were very naughty and they were screaming and shouting and disturbing everyone on the train. The passengers were surprised to see that the man was not making any effort to control their kids. This made everybody angry and annoyed.

One person could not control his irritation and angrily asked the man to control his children as they were disturbing everyone on the train. By seeing the initiative of one passenger, a few other passengers also started questioning the irresponsible behaviour of that man.

After seeing the angry protest from so many co-passengers, the man finally opened his mouth and told the co-passengers that his wife had passed away that morning and he along with his kids were coming back after the cremation! He does not want to stop his children from playing so that they do not remember their mother again.

Listening to the painful tragedy, all the co-passengers started feeling sorry for that man and their naughty children. All of a sudden, there was a paradigm shift in their thought process. So far, everyone was showing their irritation towards the man and their children but now, everyone started feeling sad for them and now they were no longer getting impacted by the disturbance created by the children and the behaviour of the man.

Moral of the story: Life is indeed a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re gonna get. We all see others through our coloured lens and make opinions about them irrespective of whether it is true or not. We should be equanimous through life’s ups and downs. It’s important to have foundational beliefs that keep you composed, to appreciate and celebrate the good, and to process trials knowing they soon shall pass.    

When we see a person of another religion, we think in a certain way. When we meet an unknown person, we have some preconceived notions. When we go to a different country, we have a different perspective about them.

Someone has rightly said that we do not see the other person through a window, we see the other person through a mirror. It means we do not see people as they are, we see them through a mirror means what we perceive, we see them as we like that. It means we see the other people from the perspective of our Sanskar like you don’t know this, why you speak like this, why you sit like this, oh you are so good etc.

Our perspective could be related to happiness, goodness, fear, ego, hurt, anger or irritation. When we see the people through these Sanskar, we will always find good things or problems in others. That is why, when we do not see others from the right perspective, we will not make the right decision. When we do not make the right decision, our karma will not be right. When our karma will not be right, our destiny will not be right. So, one wrong perspective can impact our destiny!

In general, we are right from our perspective but when we focus only on our perspective and do not consider the perspective of other person, the conflict starts. Sometimes we see a religious person and we assume that that religious person will be calm, contented and cooperative but when that person behaves differently (rude, angry, fearful), we get surprised at how can a saint behave in this way. Similarly, based on our acquired information, we label ourselves as a common man who can be angry, have an ego or can get hurt and we justify that!

The important question is should we continue with our perspective or should we try to understand the perspective of others too?

Example: When a child wakes up late on Monday morning, the mother may scold the child for waking late. The child may try to tell the mother that since he was studying late, he woke up late. But both are right from their perspective. As an outsider, you can see the perspective of both mother and son and can understand that both are right but what about son and mother?

When we start seeing everyone as a third party, we will not have any attachment and we can see things more clearly and appropriately.

When we declutter our minds by being a little slow in our thoughts, we are able to see things more clearly. As it invokes our innate ability to see things more clearly. To be more specific, we have all the answers within us. The important thing is how often we spend time with ourselves. When we sit silently and talk with ourselves, we can find the right answer.