Taking a Stand or Entering into Opposition
My wife said to me this morning: I have now come to understand the difference between entering into a confrontation with someone and taking my own stand.
In the past I used to avoid taking a stand, because I didn’t want to confront with the view of others and start quarreling, so I often kept silent.
In the last time I came to declare my standpoint in an open way. This isn’t confronting the other, who might have another standpoint. I can accept it, and when I declare my view, we can enter into an exchange.
When you insist that your standpoint is right and the other’s is wrong, you are entering into an opposition. Then you try to convince or manipulate the other to take your view. Political party ideologies are making their mark through partiality and not by synthesizing. This carries in itself the seed for conflicts with the opposing opinions and for aggression.
If, however, you are centered in your self and express, this is the way I see the thing, you can be open to the other’s viewpoint, accepting it as another facet of the whole. This way the picture of truth gets rounded up, and you can open up to new vistas of understanding.
Stones on a beach at the Gulf of Bengal
