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There is No Right or Wrong, Just What’s Right for You
“Don’t eat gluten. Running is bad for you. You should be putting money in your 401K. Natural birth is the only way. What you smoke! Gasp!”
Our society loves to tell us what to do. It sends constant (yet inconsistent) messages about the right and wrong ways to live our lives. This has only gotten worse as social media has allowed people to judge from afar, often making broad comments about someone’s life with almost no context whatsoever. Trying to sort out what are right and wrong ways to act can be dizzying. The reality is, what is true for one person’s path may not be true for someone else. Every life journey is unique and the more we realize this, the more we can respect the journeys of others and ourselves.
This idea that the concept of right and wrong is variable is one of the things that attracted me to Vedic philosophy. I was always turned off by religions and schools of thought that were entrenched in “righteousness.” You are attracted to your same sex, you’re wrong. You have a child with someone you’re not married to, you’re wrong. You worship God on Saturday, you’re wrong. My God is right, your god is wrong. This polarizing world view has led to untold amounts of suffering.
This polarization has its source in the idea that God is separate from you. That there is a being called God working for…
