Twice now two different people expressed the same, very interesting, spiritual belief. The first person shared it many years ago. I’m writing about it now because the second person shared it this past week.
The belief is a form of resistance, I believe, and also an assertion. An assertion embodying what we all know in our core selves. But mixed with the resistance, the belief, when expressed as an assertion, sometimes can come out like mild defensiveness.
The first person, from many years ago, uses this belief like a mantra. The belief, by the way, is “there’s no one right [spiritual] way.” The implication of this belief being that every spiritual approach is valid. Every way serves someone.
I wonder though if this belief is really accurate and whether the speakers really believe it. When I hear these two people express it, it sounds to me as though the speakers are justifying something. The justification, in my listening, is the paradox: the “right” way (for the speaker) is that there is no one right way.
Any way I like
“There’s no one right way”, in other words, allows the speaker to do it their way, which is fine. They don’t have to adhere to another way, even if that way would be more effective for getting what they want. I’m not suggesting there may be a more effective way than their way. What I am suggesting is “there’s no one right way” allows the speaker to stay with what they’re doing. Even if they’re not happy.
Again, I’m ok with that. Do you, I say. Live your life, your way.
But the paradox, again, is, that, even for the person who believes “there’s no one right way”, there actually IS one right way, especially for that person. The one right way for them is, “any way I like.”
I wonder if people who believe this experienced rather intense coercion in their past. Maybe a parent, or some other perceived authority, forced them to do things a certain way, maybe against their will. And that experience caused the speaker to rebel internally, to resist, in other words.
That resistance built up momentum to the point where any perceived attempt to have them do something they may not want to do triggers that past experience as the belief “there’s no one right way”. Someone with momentum behind such an experience would consider any attempt to encourage them to do something differently, even if doing it differently would benefit them, to be something “I don’t want to do”.
Interesting. That, paragraph above I just came out of my fingers while writing this post. I hadn’t thought about that before.
A conundrum
So the belief “there’s no one right way” falls somewhat flat for me. There is one right way, especially for the person who believes “there’s no one right way”. After all, there’s no other “way” the speaker could employ. For they, and everyone else, can only do something one way at a time.
The challenge is, everyone exists in their own reality. They are sovereign in that reality, meaning they, and they, alone create the experience they’re having. That means, their way is the one right way in their reality. But what’s the deal with “right”?
The “right/wrong” dichotomy is a false one, isn’t it? Someone standing in the “right/wrong” vibration is experiencing distortion therefore, are they not?
I would guess this first person, and the second person who expressed this belief last week, will probably not acknowledge this. But to me, the belief allows the person to skirt the idea that there is only one way – theirs – while claiming to accept that there are other, viable ways. But isn’t “there IS one “right” way” also a “way”? And if there is no one right way, then “there IS one right way” is also a valid “way”, is it not?
I find this belief, therefore, to be a conundrum.
One way?
Ultimately, there is one way of spiritual life. And by “spiritual life” I’m referring to All That Is and how it operates through all realities, including the physical one. That way is the paradoxical acceptance of “all ways”, with no single way being “better” or “righter” than another.
But that means, that in any given instance, there is “one way” as far as All That Is is concerned: It’s the way whatever is currently happening is happening. And, as a point of consciousness expands, I believe that consciousness evolves more and more to a “way” of being that allows only, really, one way to dominate.
That way is best represented by the word “joyful”. I wanted to write “love”, but we humans bring too much distortion to that word so we miss the point.
All That Is approaches All That Is in one way: joyfully, lovingly. Every other way leads to that. So, really, there is only one way. Right or otherwise. And that makes this “there’s no one right way” a kind of human copout, doesn’t it?
