Hi Missie, I don't think I've seen your name here before so welcome to the board.
I wanted to add one more thing to this thread, regarding the idea of an absolute path. We all know that there are kind people from all religious paths, even non religious ones. Although I don't claim that is all of what spirituality is about, (which is of course different from understanding) I think it can be used as a gauge of a certain level of spirituality. If we accept this, then I think it can be seen that there is truth to the idea of all paths leading to the same place. I think it takes some kind of intelligence rather than just a formula you can put on paper. Of course, there is also your path, and while you might be able to generalize about stages or steps in terms of what most go through, everyone's life is different, even for those in a specific religious tradition.