The Mystifying Dress...or Perspective?

Yesterday, the craziest debate was gaining attention on Facebook. It had to do with a picture of a dress and whether the dress was mainly blue or white.  While the responses seemed quite split, I thought this was a great example for a yoga class based on perspective.

Elizabeth Bowen wrote, " No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye."

Your perspective is your attitude towards a given object or subject matter and your perspective impacts everything in your life.  And how confusing does this get when what I consider to be my truth seems to your illusion and vice versa?!

"Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds." George Santayana

This dress issue did become chaotic (in a friendly way), because we all believe that what we are seeing is correct. How could my eyes be wrong? Surely, your eyes must be deceiving you.  It turns out the original dress is blue.  But, this isn't a theme on right versus wrong; it's a theme on perspective, so let's delve into that a little more.

If I saw the dress as white and was convinced I was accurate (but, yet not), what else am I so sure I am seeing correctly in my life?  This question goes out to those who saw the dress as blue, too, because don't think you are seeing everything correctly out there!  How do our perceptions impact our decisions and our choices, our attitudes and our relationships?

Take this next quote on organ donation as an example on perception...I had never thought of organ donations in this manner until I stumbled upon this:

"Don't think of organ donations as giving up part of yourself to keep a total stranger alive. It's really a total stranger giving up almost all of themselves to keep part of you alive." Author Unknown

Wow. 

Psychologist William James, psychologist said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that a person can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind".

We have choice and free will and that doesn't just refer to what you are going to eat for dinner tonight. You can choose your state of mind, choose which emotions you will cater to, choose to be helpful and kind or choose to be someone's energy vampire.  I can even choose to believe the dress is white even though the real dress is blue. What truths are you choosing for yourself?

"There are truths on this side of the Pyrénées, which are falsehoods on the other." Blaise Pascal

I used a final quote in my yoga class this morning regarding this issue:

"If you do not raise your eyes you will think that you are the highest point." Antonio Porchia

If I believe the dress to be blue but tune out and ignore the voices of those who said white, I have not raised my eyes to hearing other possibilities.  Even though correct, I haven't listened or honored another's opinion and have virtually committed myself to my perspective being true.  I offered up chair pose as an example.  Some people will say that chair pose is bad!  They can't stand the pose. Others will says it is good and they love it. Who is right? The truth is neither and both.  Chair pose is neither good or bad; it is just a pose. The words good and bad are simply labels we attach to the pose based on perspective. If my quads are weak, I'm probably not going to be a chair pose lover.  If my thighs are strong, I don't mind the pose.

Just be open to other perspectives. Be open to questioning yours, lifting your eyes higher than even your thoughts.  All truths are not created equal.