Why We Shouldn’t Judge Others on Their Path to Ascension

Our ancestors did not walk identical paths to the divine — and they did not expect one another to. Ascension, in the truest sense, is a communal inheritance: the collective movement of a people toward wholeness, justice, and spiritual freedom. The road is shared. The steps are yours alone.

There are many paths to ascension

In the Ubuntu tradition, the self cannot be separated from the community. I am because we are. This truth reshapes everything we think we know about spiritual growth. We do not rise in isolation — we rise in relationship. And because each person carries a different history, a different wound, a different gift, no two journeys toward healing and wholeness will look the same.

Some of us ascend through prayer and ritual. Some through grief. Some through art, through service, through the slow and unglamorous work of unlearning what was done to us. What our ancestors understood — what colonialism worked hard to erase — is that all of these paths are legitimate. All of them are sacred. The moment we begin ranking one another’s spiritual timelines, we have stepped out of community and into judgment. And judgment, as the elders knew, closes the very doors we are trying to open.

Just because you’re a vegan doesn’t mean I have to be one too

The practices that bring one person into alignment will not be the practices that align another. This is not relativism — it is wisdom. Our ancestors held enormous diversity within their spiritual traditions: the Yoruba did not pray identically to the Akan; the Sufi did not move like the Rastafari. What united them was not sameness of form but depth of intention. They were all, in their own way, reaching toward the sacred.

When we demand that others mirror our path — our diet, our rituals, our theology, our timeline — we are not being spiritually rigorous. We are being afraid. We are projecting our own unresolved questions onto someone else’s journey. The gift of the power of spirituality in daily life is that it belongs to everyone differently. Your practice does not diminish because your sister’s looks nothing like it.

If you are deepening your spiritual life — through meditation, embodied practice, ancestral connection, or simply the discipline of showing up to yourself each day — that is enough. You do not need a congregation of people doing it your way to validate what is real in you.

The best way to help others is to do your own soul work first

There is a reason the Akan proverb says: “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.” Wholeness starts inside. When we have not done our own healing — when we have not sat with our shadows, our inherited pain, our grief — we will inevitably try to manage it by controlling or correcting others. Judgment is almost always a displaced cry for help.

Understanding the connection between life and spirituality means recognizing that our inner work is community work. When we heal, we make it safer for those around us to heal. When we release judgment, we create the conditions for others to breathe more freely. This is the Ubuntu principle in action: my liberation is bound up in yours. My willingness to do my own work is an act of love toward every person in my circle.

When we catch ourselves criticizing another person’s pace, their choices, their unfinished edges — that is not spiritual discernment. That is our own inner critic finding an external target. The invitation is always to turn inward: What am I avoiding? What in me is asking to be seen?

How do I know when I’m ready?

You will know. Not because an authority figure tells you. Not because you have completed a checklist. You will know because something in you — deeper than thought, older than language — will begin to shift. Our ancestors called it different things in different traditions: ashe, baraka, chi, divine timing. The name matters less than the recognition: there is a wisdom in you that has been watching, waiting, tending the fire.

Readiness is not the absence of fear or confusion. It is the willingness to move anyway — in community, with accountability, grounded in the knowing that you do not walk alone. Whether your path runs through the church, the ceremony, the therapy room, or the garden at dawn, what matters is that you are walking it with integrity and causing no harm along the way.

Forgiveness is not a destination — it is a practice. Acceptance is not passivity — it is the radical act of releasing what was never yours to carry. We are all somewhere on this road. None of us has arrived. The grace we extend to others is the grace we are quietly asking for ourselves.

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References + Related Reading

References

• Psychological Projection & The Shadow: The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious by Carl Jung explores how we project our internal struggles onto others.

• Radical Acceptance: Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach offers a guide to living without judgment.

• The Principle of Ahimsa: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali outline the ethical foundation of non-violence in thought and action.

• The Law of One: The Ra Contact: Teaching the Law of One provides a deep-dive into the spiritual mechanics of the ascension process.

Related Reading

• The Power of Spirituality in Daily Life
• My Thoughts on the Connection Between Life and Spirituality
• A Metaphysical Journey Through Your Energy Centers
• Embracing Your Spiritual Connection With or Without the Rules of Religion