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The way I've been thinking about attitude is that it might represent a position of consciousness, most likely a fixed and unmoving position of consciousness in relationship to some thing or the other.
For example, people's timelines, whatever they may be.
It seems that when a person takes a position of consciousness - an attitude! - IN RELATION to that timeline HERE, it produces a different result in cognitive terms than if they move their position and take up a different position - a different attitude! - OVER THERE.
To me, the consciousness is like an airplane or a helicopter - it can fly around our systems and take all manner of different positions in relationship to all sorts of concepts and ideas, thoughtforms, thoughtfields, data of all kinds.
With timeline as an example again, consciousness can fly to just after a special event happened and observe this event from "high above".
We can move our consciousness helicopter, perhaps a space ship might be a better metaphor there, or a time-space ship if you want to be very precise, and land INSIDE the memory of the event.
We can land BEFORE the event.
And we can fly THROUGH the event.
And all that produces DIFFERENT ATTITUDES or viewpoints on the SAME data.
Now generally, you can't calculate distances and occurrences correctly until you have at least 2 different points of reference - they call it triangulation, I believe.
And in terms of experiential data that a person has collected, you certainly shouldn't generalise from a single occurrence.
If we were to use that model, then we could say that what we call a "bad attitude" might simply be a vantage point for the consciousness that is:
a) considered to be THE WRONG ONE by others; and
b) limiting the information that can be derived from that view, from that direction.
I find this rather interesting; in autism for example, one of the major diagnostic methods revolves around showing that the autistic person can NOT switch their vantage point or attitude to, say, another person's vantage point.
A doll is placed behind a screen and an apple is placed in front of the screen.
The person is asked if the doll can see the apple.
If the autistic person THEMSELVES, from their vantage point, can see the apple, they will say, "Yes the doll can see the apple," failing to make that MOVEMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS whereby we briefly travel across to the doll and view the situation through its eyes - and all there is there is a big screen, and no apple at all.
- This very basic human ability to take a different vantage point, or a different attitude in consciousness, is clearly a very central skill of those who have the conscious mind like we do.
And the ability to have the consciousness really become a totally free time/space ship where you can literally go ANY WHERE, BECOME ANY ONE, and see/hear/feel/experience ANY THING from any vantage point or attitude AT ALL, is the high end of all magic, shamanic, even spiritual endeavours and development.
Thus I would conclude that to pay attention to attitude, and to actively practice to change one's attitude to anything, and everything; to find all manner of different attitudes relating to a single occurrence and essentially to learn how to steer the time/space ship of consciousness precisely and elegantly is something worth doing.
If you have "a bad attitude" or "the wrong attitude" to some one or some thing, we might ask, "What is the right attitude? Is there "a" right attitude? What other attitudes can I take to this, and HOW do I alter my attitude?"
The autism example tells us that the easiest way surely is to use that normal human ability to "see the world through another person's eyes".
Shift your point of view to someone who holds a different attitude.
Notice what the challenges or difficulties might be in "walking a few steps in another man's moccasins" or what your objections to that might be.
Are you afraid you are going to "change your mind" if you experiment with taking a different attitude?
If you are, you're probably right. Changing your vantage point on anything, changing your attitude on anything is BOUND to change your mind - you will get a whole new set of data, of information, that is significantly different from what there was before, and you'll have to do something with that, find a way to store this new data and make it work with the data you already possess.
You might be black and shift your consciousness to take the attitude of a white supremacist nazi.
There would be a lot of "alien" information coming in for which there might not even exist any categories as yet; and some people find this frightening and will avoid doing so.
It's a shame though.
The information that COULD be gained by changing one's attitude could come in handy, if you wanted to start a fight, or even avoid one.
- MORE information is ALWAYS better than LESS information - and that's a fact.
The more information we have, the richer we become as human beings in a very practical, down to Earth, survival and thriving sense.
So, and in conclusion.
- Changing one's attitude is a skill set that is based on a natural human ability and which gets better with practice.
- Being able to change attitude at will is one of the core advanced skills for thinking human beings.
- We can begin to practice this skill of changing one's attitude by using the natural process of "seeing" (feeling, experiencing, hearing, sensing etc) the world or the topic matter through another person's eyes.
- We can further practice this "positioning of the consciousness time/space ship" by navigating our consciousness through our memories and taking up different attitudes towards events, like in timeline.
- Every time we shift attitude, we gain access to MORE INFORMATION. And the more information we have, the more functional in a very practical sense we become as human beings.
- The better we get at it, the more possibilities start to open up for true personal freedom experienced first hand, using the movement of consciousness, that is the attitude we take on - everything in the Universe.
Dr Silvia Hartmann
May 2009
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