All Paths Lead to the Divine [Bhagavad Gita]

If you’re like me, you may have had those moments in your life where you’ve agonized over “what is the correct path?” Is it a monotheistic faith? Is it Pagan? What if there is a “one true way” and I get it wrong? There was an episode of South Park that made fun of this. Several people of different faiths were surprised at ending up in hell, since they thought that their religion was the “one true religion.” But then a voice overhead said “sorry, Mormon was the correct religion.”

So, from the beginning of Judeo Christian religion, we’ve been taught that there is a “right” and “wrong” religion. This is the result in believing in a “one true God.” Before this mentality took hold, there were myriad of different spiritual groups and traditions. There wasn’t necessarily a right or wrong God. There was instead a supreme God (usually the favorite of the emperor or king) and then less supreme Gods.

In Rome some people would worship the traditional Roman Gods while others took to worshiping new Gods introduced by foreigners, such as Epona and Isis. In Japan, when the people encountered Buddhism for the first time, they simply mixed the new Buddhist and the original Shinto tradition together. Even the idea of “Hinduism” as a single religion is misleading (an idea perpetuated by Westerners), because in India they actually practice  a myriad of different traditions to a wide diversity of different Gods.

Yet this idea about “the real religion” or “the real tradition” is even pushed by Pagans. Some of us point fingers at other pagan traditions different from our own and call them “posers”, “wannabes”, “too new agey”, “too old fashioned”, “too fluffy”, “too brutal”, “too universal”, “too exclusive.”

I’m not saying every path is always good no matter what. I’m sure if some group decided to start practicing human sacrifice or cannibalism of other group members we could objectively call that wrong. I’m not saying that we have to be open to everything.

However, I’d like to shed some wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita on this age old question:

“You may think this is partiality, but I have no favorites. Whatever path a person travels to Me is My path. In whatever way a person approaches Me, I return like for like. If they treat Me as father or mother, I treat them as My children. If they serve Me as master, I accept their services as their Lord. If they worship Me as a child, I approach them as a child. Those who pine for Me, I pine for. To those who see Me as friend I am friend. Even for those who perceive Me as enemy I approach as enemy. All paths lead to Me, Divinity.” (Krishna’s Declaration in Chapter 4)