“to define is to limit” – Oscar Wilde

As soon as you define something, whatever it’s a concept, a category, a school of thoughts or a spiritual current, it becomes limited within its own definition. There is no more space for evolution, changes, nor acceptance, and as time goes by, what is taught and transmitted turns into mere interpretations, of what it was at its point of origin, denying its full potential..

However, every interpretation is a source of knowledge, and has something to teach us. Even false truths are valuable in the sense that they give us the “second half” of the whole, showing both sides of the same notion, accepting the opposites that are necessary to a unity.

In Tantra, it’s a very important part for the understanding of life, reality and illusions. As duality is an illusion, the opposites are not 2 distinct entities, but the complementary parts of one unit. How could you say “it’s night time” if you didn’t have day time to refer to?

Every culture offers a different point of view, an interpretation of the same “object”: Reality. The way every person experiences and sees this “object” is through culturally influenced points of view, shaped by education, based on a belief system, all belonging to one community. Their interpretation of Reality is as valuable as yours because it represents one piece of the same puzzle we all share.

How can we grow up, mature and evolve if no one is there to shake up our certainties and illusions, to question our (own conception of) reality?

For me, for a principle to be spiritually valid, it has to be universal (not bound to any influenced interpretation) and promote inclusiveness. (as soon as we start to separate, we start to breed violence).

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

That’s why, instead of “choosing” one particular school or current, I prefer to go back to basics, take what is useful for me in each one, and trust my inner-teacher, instead of adhering blindly to one perception.

I experienced too often how two people seem to disagree with each other when they actually are saying the same thing. Each field of expertise, each limb of science and spirituality are naming ideas, concepts or notions in their own ways, either using the same word for 2 different interpretations, or using 2 different words for the same referent. Well, it complicates a lot mutual understanding.

I think – maybe too optimistically – that loads of people have actually the same conception of the world, agree on the fundamentals, even on what is “right” and what is “wrong”, but because of the “differences” between their respective points of view, one “has to be right”, which automatically define the other one has “wrong”… They are just the 2 representations of the same Reality.