Materialism and Spiritual Enlightenment
There is a long-standing debate between materialism and spiritual enlightenment ever since the dawn of human civilization. In a general sense, these two phenomena are taken as contrary to one other which often call for an intense metaphysical debate. So, what is the fundamental truth?
Materialism Vs Spiritual Enlightenment
Materialism is the philosophy that puts greater value on material possessions rather than on spiritual and intellectual matters. As being excessively concerned with physical comforts and pleasures rather than with spiritual values, the materialistic way of life is interrelated to hedonism in some kind of way.
For the purpose of this article, enlightenment is approached from a spiritual point of view, and not the seventeenth century European intellectual movement. It is a rather elusive concept to grab. To simplify it, let’s call enlightenment a spiritual awakening.
Is being materialistic bad?
Let’s be practical. Unless you are a Stoic, you can’t imagine the life today without all the worldly material possessions that we have. We are so accustomed to the modern way of life that we cannot abandon all these conveniences and go back to the Stone Age again. But even after having all these worldly pleasures at our disposal, we are no better off than our past generations, and neither will be our future.
So where did we go wrong? What are we really seeking in our life? Why are we not happy in spite of having “everything”? If it doesn’t make us happy, then is it worth it? What’s the fundamental truth that gives us ultimate happiness?
Back to the Cave
The same thing that used to comfort us once doesn’t seem to be the same now. Maybe we have been searching for the happiness in the wrong place all this time. We are no different from those prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the cave. We consider this superficial physical reality as the ultimate truth, accepting the things at their face value. Furthermore, we mistake appearance for the reality. As long as we are trapped in this cave, we can never get to know the real cause behind our sufferings. The physical world and the sensation we get from it is nothing more than a chain of ignorance stopping us from finding the truth which constitutes the real knowledge that Socrates considered as “good”.
To escape from this cave is the first step to the spiritual awakening. When you come to realize that the worldly pleasures are just the shadows that we have created for ourselves, that’s when you free yourselves from the cave. The purpose of life should not be limited to some illusions. It should be to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. Those who dare to escape and seek the truth are the true philosophers in life.
Path to Spiritual Awakening
Waking up and breaking free from the chain of false physical reality isn’t going to be easy. We may be tempted to go back to the normal way of life because that’s what we are accustomed to. The light of truth can be unbearable to our eyes at first. The light represents the wisdom which is the fundamental reality, unlike the material word that we know through physical sensation.
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