Throughout history, people found their identity through their community. Your family, tribe, or religion told you who you were and what to believe. The idea of choosing your own path seemed strange or even impossible.
Today, something is changing. More people are discovering that they can explore spirituality in their own way. You don’t have to fit into one box or follow just one teaching. Your spiritual journey can be as unique as you are.
This article will help you understand how to create a spiritual path that truly fits you, using simple practices you can try right now.
What Does It Mean to Have Your Own Path?
Think of spirituality like food. Some people prefer Italian cuisine, others love Thai food, and many enjoy trying dishes from different cultures. No one insists you eat only one type of food for your whole life. Your spiritual journey can work the same way.
Having your own path means: • You can explore different spiritual teachings and practices • You can keep what helps you grow and let go of what doesn’t • You can stay connected to a religious community while also learning from other sources • You trust your own inner wisdom to guide you
Practice: Notice What Resonates
Take a moment right now to check in with yourself. Close your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths. As you breathe, notice how your chest rises and falls.
Now think about a spiritual idea or practice you’ve encountered recently. It could be prayer, meditation, a teaching you heard, or even a moment in nature that moved you.
Place one hand on your heart. Ask yourself: Does thinking about this practice make my heart feel warmer, lighter, or more open? Or does it feel heavy, tight, or closed?
Your heart’s response is information. When something truly fits you, your heart often feels more open and alive. This is your inner compass showing you the way.
Understanding Your Inner Guidance
You have an inner knowing that exists beyond your everyday thinking mind. Some call it intuition, inner wisdom, or the voice of the soul. Whatever you call it, this inner sense can help you find your way.
Imagine you’re in a dark room with a small flashlight. The flashlight is your inner wisdom. It might not show you the whole room at once, but it will light up the next step. That’s all you need.
Practice: Connect with Your Inner Wisdom
Here’s a simple way to tap into your inner guidance:
- Find a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed for five minutes
- Sit comfortably and close your eyes
- Take several slow, deep breaths. With each exhale, imagine releasing tension from your body
- Place both hands on your heart center (middle of your chest)
- Silently ask: What do I most need to know right now?
- Don’t force an answer. Simply breathe and stay open. You might get a word, an image, a feeling, or just a sense of peace
- When you’re ready, open your eyes and write down anything that came to you
This practice helps you remember that you have wisdom within you. The more you check in with this inner knowing, the stronger and clearer it becomes.
You Don’t Have to Choose Just One Teaching
Here’s an important truth: Different spiritual paths offer different gifts. Think of it like tools in a toolbox. A hammer is perfect for nails, but you need a screwdriver for screws. Both are valuable.
One tradition might teach you powerful practices for quieting your mind. Another might help you open your heart. A third might show you how to serve others with compassion. You can learn from all of them.
Some people worry this approach isn’t focused or serious enough. But actually, it takes great wisdom to recognize truth wherever you find it. Your path is real because it’s genuine for you.
Practice: Discover Your Spiritual Needs
Take out a piece of paper and write these questions at the top: • What do I most need in my spiritual life right now? • What practices make me feel more connected and alive? • What teachings have helped me grow the most?
Write whatever comes without judging it. Your answers will show you what your soul is hungry for. This helps you know what to look for on your journey.
Honoring Your Unique Expression
Imagine a vast garden with thousands of different flowers. Each flower contributes its own beauty, color, and fragrance. The garden wouldn’t be complete if every flower tried to be a rose.
You are like a unique flower in the garden of life. Your particular way of understanding and experiencing spirituality is your gift. The world needs your authentic expression, not a copy of someone else’s path.
This means: • Your spiritual path doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s • What works for your friend might not work for you, and that’s okay • You can honor traditions while also trusting your own experience • Your path is valid even if it doesn’t have an official name or label
Practice: Recognize Your Essence
This practice helps you feel the part of you that is beyond labels and categories:
- Sit quietly and take a few deep breaths
- Notice that you are aware right now. You are aware of reading these words, aware of breathing, aware of sitting
- This awareness itself is your deepest essence. It’s always present, always peaceful, always whole
- Rest in this awareness for a minute. Just be present with the simple fact that you exist and are aware
- This awareness is who you truly are, beyond any spiritual tradition or label. It’s your connection to the sacred, and it’s always with you
Dealing with Others’ Opinions
Sometimes people who follow one specific path may not understand your approach. They might think you need to choose one tradition or that mixing practices isn’t valid. This is natural. They’re seeing through the lens of their own experience.
Think of it this way: Someone who only speaks one language might not understand why you’re learning three languages. But speaking multiple languages doesn’t make you confused. It makes you more able to communicate with different people.
You don’t need to convince others that your path is right. You just need to stay true to what genuinely helps you grow. Your peaceful presence and authentic growth will speak louder than any argument.
Staying Connected While Exploring
Maybe you already belong to a spiritual community that means a lot to you. You can stay connected to this community while also learning from other sources. These two things don’t have to conflict.
Your community offers: • A sense of belonging and shared practice • Regular rituals and celebrations • Support during difficult times
Your personal exploration offers: • Freedom to discover what truly resonates with you • Access to wisdom from many traditions • A direct, personal relationship with the sacred
Both can enrich your life. You get to choose what balance works for you.
Practice: Finding Balance
Draw a simple circle on paper. This circle represents your whole spiritual life.
Divide the circle into sections like a pie, with each section representing a different source of spiritual nourishment. For example: • Your religious community or tradition • Personal meditation or prayer • Time in nature • Reading or studying • Serving others • Creative expression
Make each section bigger or smaller based on how much it currently nourishes you. This visual helps you see if your spiritual diet is balanced or if you need more of something.
Building Your Daily Practice
A spiritual path isn’t just ideas and beliefs. It’s what you actually do each day to connect with something greater than yourself. Your daily practice is like watering a plant. Small, regular actions create real growth.
Your practice might include: • A few minutes of quiet sitting each morning • Prayer or setting an intention for your day • Reading something inspiring • Moments of gratitude throughout the day • Walking mindfully in nature • Evening reflection on your day • Meditation and contemplation to experience your deeper self
Start simple. Better to do one practice consistently than to create an elaborate plan you can’t maintain.
Practice: Create Your Morning Anchor
Choose one simple practice to do each morning. Here’s an easy one to start with:
- Before getting out of bed, take three conscious breaths
- Place your hand on your heart
- Silently say or think: May I meet this day with inner strength, and an open heart
- That’s it. Thirty seconds that set a sacred tone for your entire day
Do this every morning for a week. Notice how it affects your day. If it helps, keep it. If it doesn’t resonate, try something else. You’re building your own practice based on what actually works for you.
Trusting the Process
Your spiritual path will unfold naturally over time. You don’t need to have it all figured out today. Think of yourself as a traveler on a journey. Sometimes the path is clear. Sometimes it winds through unfamiliar territory. Sometimes you pause to rest. All of this is part of the journey.
What matters most is staying connected to your inner wisdom and being honest about what truly helps you grow. The teachings and practices you need will find their way to you at the right time.
Remember: • Your path is valid even without an official label • Learning from multiple sources shows wisdom, not confusion • Your inner knowing is a trustworthy guide • What resonates in your heart is showing you the way • Your unique expression is your gift to the world
Your Path Forward
The question isn’t which single path to choose. The question is: What helps me connect with what’s sacred? What practices open my heart? What teachings help me become more loving, more peaceful, more whole?
Your answers to these questions create your path. This path already exists within you, waiting to be discovered. Every time you check in with your heart, every time you follow what genuinely resonates, every time you honor your unique way of experiencing the sacred, you’re walking your path.
The great teachers and traditions you encounter along the way are mirrors. They reflect back to you the wisdom that already lives in your own heart. They remind you of what you already know in your deepest being.
Trust yourself. Trust the journey. And trust that the path you’re creating is exactly right for you.
Final Practice: Your Commitment
Close your eyes and place both hands on your heart. Take a slow, deep breath.
Silently or out loud, make this simple commitment to yourself:
I trust my own heart and my higher wisdom to guide me. I will explore with grounded common sense, and with openness. I will honor what truly helps me grow. I will be gentle with myself on this journey. I am exactly where I need to be.
Take one more deep breath and open your eyes.
Your journey is sacred. Your path is yours. Welcome home.
Joel Bruce Wallach
My teacher says that following a specific path with a genuine realised soul as the teacher is like making the journey towards the golden shore in a big boat that crosses the turbulent ocean of ignorance safely and at top speed. He compares being on your own as having a small raft. He also doesn t encourage trying to follow different paths or different teachings at the same time, as every path has its own way of seeing the truth and some might be in contradiction with each other and actually confuse the seeker.
Seekers of the highest truth are everywhere, true realised souls are unfortunateky not as many, and realised soul teachers are even less.
I wish to humbly share two links of two different realised spiritual masters that you might receive inspiration from:
A talk about meditation from Guruji Devababa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XLqw_lo01E
High meditations beyond samadhi in live with Sri Chinmoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M3iK_a-azM
Mahasathi,
Thank you for writing. The apparent contradictions between paths are worth exploring.
As you delve deeper into the essence of the seemingly contradictory principles presented by various teachings, you can find deeper unifying principles. This is the value of exploring paths and learning from them.
The idea that students would become confused assumes that the teachers are not able to rectify the various teachings. Here is but one example of apparent contradictions that confuse some students:
– In Hinduism, the student is taught that there is an essential timeless self at the core of one’s being.
– In Buddhism, the student is taught that there is no self at the core of one’s being.
When you explore these teachings more deeply, you find that the Buddhist doctrine of “no self” means that all the labels that define experience, and that define self, are not expressing the deepest essential truth; they are only labels. Anytime you think you’ve arrived at “the final definition of self,” you find that there is always more to discover. And yet, as you go ever more deeply within, you eventually do find an essential cosmic energy of some kind, and you may wonder what it is. It is not a physical or spiritual self definition in the usual sense, but it is nonetheless a distinctive inner universal energy. This is something you experience, and not something you can be taught.
Likewise, when you explore more deeply into the inner cosmic essence of the Hindu teachings, you find something that closely fits the definition and experience of the deeper Buddhist experience. Therefore, the “eternal self” of Hinduism, and the “no self” of Buddhism are found to be the same cosmic inner essence, although described in different ways that appear to be contradictions.
In other words, the seeming differences between paths can be understood through deeper inner exploration. Those teachers who help you see the essential unities are worth exploring and learning from, because they are not stuck in the superficial differences between different religions and spiritual paths. They are guiding you to discover, for yourself, the essentials of all teachings.
I understand you are saying the destination is the same wichever path we follow. It’s all one! (Like the soaps )
What I am trying to convey is that it is important, if we choose to follow a specific spiritual path, to stick to it and not look elsewhere.
I really like the image of the boat being a spiritual path: some people enjoy simply watching the different boats from the shore and wondering wether or not they are going to reach their destination.
Others are alone on a small raft paddling looking at this boat and then that boat and wondering what is the right way to navigate to get to the destination, because one boat says ‘no self’ and the other ‘supreme self”.
Another is on a boat, looking at some other boat wondering wether or not that other boat is going faster, or wether the people are having more fun over there or how nice the boat looks.
My point is, if you don t have a boat, good luck on your journey (no sarcasm intended), if you do have one, stick to it! ☺
Of course I understand more advanced souls have a strong enough connection to their inner self in their life to easily do the journey on their own, without an outer and inner structure to carry them or help them carry themselves, lucky they are!
I enjoy your articles very much, it is a very smooth reading experience filled with light in every word, thank you for that.
Mahasathi,
The student who needs to stick with one teaching is the younger soul who would become otherwise confused. The advice to not look elsewhere is appropriate for their protection.
These articles are for the older souls who would benefit by discovering the subtle links between various teachings. When an older soul is following only one teaching, they may receive a view that is too narrow for their infinite capacity to recognize truth as it appears in many forms.
In my experience, I see amazingly great value in following a spiritual path! And in some ways, it does take a conscious effort to start and do so. But does not mean you must follow anything religious. We all have our own way of following a spiritual path!
http://www.keithmintz.com/blog/why-you-should-follow-a-spiritual-path
KJ,
Thank you for mentioning this, KJ. There are many paths up the mountain.
Since childhood I have searched for spiritual answers, with my mother’s help (a very religious woman in a good way). Then with marriage and the birth of my two sons. (plus divorce) there didnt seem to be anytime. In 1980 with the death of my mother, my spiritual search began once again. From 1980 to 2001 my life expanded in wondrous ways. Interaction with Angels (messages for others in trials), readings of all kinds, spiritual communications with deceased loved ones, again bringing help and guidance for their loved ones. As my life took on many ups and downs, I too was supported & guided.
20014/2016 medical issues and financial problems changed my direction. I feel lost and off of my path. Terribly barren. My belief is still there but my connection isn’t. I feel as if I have lost my love and compassion for people. Their petty annoyances & greed makes me very discourage. I’m feeling, they aren’t even connected to their spiritual selves.
Does my lack of compassion and my judgement of these folks mean that my purpose or spiritual path is over? There is so much need for someone to channel love in this world. To share God/Goddess, Angels and spirit guidance with those who are in need.
How do I find my path again, how do I warm heart to all, without judgement.Please I welcome any guidance? Thank you.
Patricia,
You can recover your spiritual connection by releasing the judgments about yourself and others. Here is how:
When you find yourself judging your thoughts and feelings, say this to yourself: “Self, I love and accept you, even when you feel name the feeling here.
When you find yourself judging other people because you think they are negative or petty, say this to yourself: “I release judgment about these people, even though they behave as they do.”
Each day, you will feel lighter, and your spiritual divine connection will become stronger.
How do i start preparing myself spiritually and learn to focus on i am doing to find my true route. I have studied different some ways but i haven’t find the right path that work for me.
Good question, Joseph.
The answer is in the article above:
“Learn to tune into the highest teachings in every path that you study.”
That means that your path may include some wisdom from everything that you study.
Your path is Your path, and it includes the wisdom that works for you, no matter where you find it. Look everywhere, and keep what feels true for you.