Another way of stating this is that one must be sensitive to the direction and promptings that the universal logos is unfolding within one’s experience. It is the universal logos that unfolds our experience, and if we listen to its guidance and intimations we may discern which way it is taking us. In other words, the universal logos is the force that directs our destiny, including which path to follow. We need to discover the direction its optimizing intelligence wants to take us, which is the same as finding and following our destiny. The path we follow is, in some very deep way, not a personal choice, but a destiny. That is why a genuine teacher does not recruit or try to enlist students, but simply follows the unfolding of the logos, accepting what it does in terms of which students to bring into the teaching and which it sends away.

The idea that each teaching has its particular logos does not mean that there are many universal logoi. Rather, it means that all these logoi are expressions of the one universal and cosmic logos, the creative dynamism of transcendent truth. They are different ways that the universal logos manifests its wisdom and teaching about reality. Each is absolutely valid, and possibly complete as a teaching. They are all different, each leading to a different kind of spiritual experience, a different terrain in the inner journey, sometimes a different meaning for spiritual development and enlightenment, and frequently to different ways of experiencing spiritual reality and understanding. Yet, each is accurate and objective. Each expresses and describes reality faithfully. For each is accurate within its own logos, and leads to the kind of experience and realization that its own logos dictates. This is similar to traveling to a faraway country from different directions. One will encounter a different terrain, will have a different experience, will need different supports, and so on, depending on the route one takes. The experience and needs of a person traveling by air will be different from those of a person traveling by land or sea. Even if two individuals travel on land their experiences can still be quite different, depending on their means of transportation. When they all finally arrive at the same destination they will have some similar perceptions, but they will not necessarily agree on how they see it, what they value about it, which part they value, which aspect they focus on, how to relate to it, and so on. They are all right in what they see and value, but their routes determine to some extent how they see the destination and how they relate to it. Thus the different logoi will lead to different experiences and realizations but still are all accurate depictions of reality. The metaphor of travel is necessarily limited because the various logoi are all expressions of the universal logos, intelligently unfolding a path appropriate for the situation and needs of the people in it.

All genuine teachings are expressive of the universal logos, the creative matrix of all reality. Since the logos has an optimizing property that tends, if cooperated with, to unfold experience toward its own harmony and the peace of its absolute ground, all these teachings will express an optimizing intelligence and a movement toward a maximization of experience. Yet, how this optimization occurs, what it means, the phases it goes through, the various experiences involved in it, and the concepts best used to describe these experiences and their direction, can be different. In other words, the universal logos is too creative and intelligent for it to be constrained to unfold in one particular valid way, a way that we can term the true and objective view of reality. The logos is responsive to situations and actual needs of real people, and these are determined by historical epochs, culture, language, forms of logic and psychology, major events, and so on. Therefore, how it unfolds its wisdom as a teaching will have to take into consideration all these factors, and many others. This is an expression of its optimizing and loving intelligence, and its total freedom. This amounts to recognizing that the logos can unfold experience through different and varying logoi.

The universal logos is the ordered pattern of the flow of manifestation, as we discussed in chapter 20. It is the flow of embodied concepts as cosmic speech, which articulates its intelligent optimizing force. But the term logos also means a particular pattern of change, flow, and development, with its own logic and conceptualization. This latter meaning implies that there can be logoi, different forms of logos that apply to different situations or systems. All the logoi must reflect and express the universal logos as an ordered pattern of unfoldment, but they can differ in their conceptualizatons, their logic, and the particulars of the phases of development. It is possible to see that each teaching is an expression of a particular logos. The logos of a particular teaching has its own unique view of ultimate reality or truth, self or soul, and spiritual path. Each possesses a different and unique technical language, logic of experience and understanding, ideals of development or realization, phases of unfoldment of experience and understanding, and kinds of experience, perception, and knowledge. Furthermore, each possesses an approach to spiritual work or practice, determined by its view of ultimate truth and realization. This necessitates different methods and approaches, and varying spiritual technologies, that are often different in principle. Most important, this implies differing views of ultimate truth, final realization, and spiritual experience, which amounts also to different ways of conceptualizing spiritual dimensions and qualities. An obvious example is the difference of conceptualization in the view of ultimate reality between Buddhism, Vedanta, and Taoism on one hand, and the monotheistic traditions on the other. Buddhism and Taoism conceptualize the ultimate truth as an impersonal truth, a ground of existence, emptiness, or Tao, from which everything spontaneously arises. The monotheistic traditions think of the ultimate truth as not only a personal and personally responsive God, but as one who actively manages creation.