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Points and more Points of View

By Sheri Rosenthal

Have you seen Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11? The fantastic lesson in this movie, as I see it, is the opportunity to see how many ways you can write history while an element of truth is still present in each story and point of view. For example, after watching this film, I can easily say how much of a dope President Bush is, yet if someone who liked the President would make a film, the story would be completely different. Selective use of "information" is what creates the story either way. It is important to keep this in mind because this is the same method we use to create the story of our lives!

President Bush may have gone to that elementary school the day the bombing occurred, but did he really sit in there like that? Where did that clip come from and who filmed it? Is that really the bigger picture of what happened? Who knows? I certainly don't. He is sharing a piece of information which may be truth, but the context is gone. Even if we could have been there to actually see what happened in the classroom itself, would there be agreement amongst us as to what "really" happened? I think not!

I imagine us all as computer programs that are constantly in the process of qualifying, analyzing, pigeonholing, and assessing everything we perceive with our senses. The mind is a wonderful gift of being human, yet we do not put this gift in the "proper" context. Just because we run something we perceive through our mind/computer doesn't mean the conclusion the program comes to is the truth. The conclusion is simply the result the multiple permutations the program goes through based on learned formulas. In other words all the stuff you "know" and what you believe you have experienced (from your point of view of course) is qualifying what you are currently seeing and experiencing in every moment! How can the conclusions of a slanted computer be accurate? It simply cannot.

Based on this, I recognize that everything I perceive and run through my program is no longer the truth. It is truth from my point of view of course, but not "the truth." By "the truth" I mean simply "what is," without the world of concepts superimposed upon it. Once you put concepts upon the "what is" you distort it and make it into something else - a story. Of course, the cleaner the information in your program is the easier it will be to move through your life seeing what is, rather than seeing what you want to see! I am guessing right about now that you are wondering how you can possibly walk through the world without your mind telling you what's going on, but you can do it!

If you can practice just seeing, without the judgment and commentary from your mind (better known as thinking), you will find that you must use your feelings and heart to interact with the world. The trick to doing this is having total detachment from the mind; otherwise you will feel all kinds of emotions based on what is in your subconscious mind even if you "think" you're not thinking!

To gain clarity about your life, it's necessary to see all points of view for what they are. Detach from all the concepts and agreements you've made about everything in your story or anyone else's story. Go ahead - take a chance and experiment with perceiving life from a different point of view!

Sheri Rosenthal DPM is a master Toltec teacher and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Toltec Wisdom. Having trained with don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, she currently takes students on spiritual journeys, works with personal apprentices and enjoys being extremely happy. You can reach her at info@sherirosenthal.com or http://www.sherirosenthal.com.