Should You Choose Opposition or Reconciliation?

Choose reconciliation. We have the strength to fashion a new world order through our thinking and evolutionary actions.

Opposition or Reconciliation: What Should We Choose?

By Barbara Briggs

The tendency to criticize, judge, oppose, and condemn someone else’s thinking and action is becoming like a virulent poison infecting the political arena of certain countries, especially the United States. It is as if some members of society can only see their own point of view and assume it’s the only correct way of analyzing a situation. In reality, one can always only perceive outside what exists within one’s own awareness. The World Is as We Are.

There is a beautiful saying by Lao Tzu:

A sound man’s heart is not shut within itself

But is open to other people’s hearts;

I find good people, good

And I find bad people good

If I am good enough;

I trust men of their word,

And I trust liars

If I am true enough;

I feel the heart-beats of others

Above my own

If I am enough of a father

Enough of a son.

One’s point of view is limited to the type of glasses one is wearing. If one is wearing red glasses, the world always appears as if tinted red, whereas if one is wearing green glasses, the world appears to have a green hue. There is no absolute truth to anyone’s point of view because no one is privy to the full comprehension of any situation. One sees only a fragment and the rest of the picture remains hidden. Perception and knowledge differ in different levels of awareness. If we view a river from the summit of a mountain and view the same river from a plateau, our vision of the river will be different.

It is better to look for the good in people rather than denouncing them for their shortcomings. What we see, we become. The more we see bad in others, the more the bad increases in ourselves because what we put our attention on grows stronger in our lives.

In this regard, in his book, Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says:

“Individuals hardly realize that they are contributing to an influence that disrupts and destroys the world’s peace through ill feeling, malice, bad behavior, harsh words and suffering they are creating… All international conflicts are caused by the collection of great tensions in the atmosphere that have been released by the individuals.”

Everyone is responsible for the current state of affairs in their community and in the family of nations. We have the choice to tip the scales in favor of more light, positivity, harmony, peace, and love. We have the strength to fashion a new world order through our thinking and evolutionary actions. Choose reconciliation.

We cannot alter the events in the world, but we can change the way we respond to those events. For example, we can respond in ways that add to the world’s fear, anxiety, and sadness, or we can respond with love, compassion, and forgiveness. In this way, through empathetic thinking and action, we paint a brighter future picture of our world.