Spiritual Materialism

This is a clip from the Look Again podcast. The topic of discussion is spiritual materialism. The group discusses what spiritual materialism is, the creativity of the ego expressing itself, and others.

Please note: This podcast contains explicit language.

Transcript

Let me go ahead and read this thing.

So it says,

Spirit materialism is the belief that a certain temporary state of mind is a refuge for suffering.

An example would be using meditation practices to create a peaceful state of mind or using drugs or alcohol to remain in a numbed out or a for state.

So I guess the first start,

Let's like break it down.

Like what does materialism mean?

You know,

So enjoying products,

Enjoying like clothes and entertainment and I think it was like the new objects and stuff like that.

Yeah,

Any object,

Any material thing using that to try to gain happiness through that material object instead of through your infinite self and honing it to and not being like,

You know,

Altruistic with the things that you're accumulating.

I think that has a lot to do with it also.

Yeah,

And it seems like a part of materialism also is like the desire for more.

You know what I mean?

Like that,

I don't know,

For some reason,

Greed and materialism go hand in hand for me.

Like it's never enough.

Yeah,

Right.

It's always,

You know,

You get a new pair of shoes.

It's only going to last until you want another new pair of shoes.

It's temporary,

Like bliss kind of.

And we're on the heels of what?

Christmas right now?

Where like a lot of materials are like purchased for happiness and kind of showing love when it could be shown different ways.

But,

You know,

Sometimes you want those new sneakers or whatever.

I mean,

Yeah,

But I think the only difference with the holidays is less of materialism because,

Or at least for me it is because I love to give and I love seeing the smile that I get on people's faces.

So,

You know,

I don't think that the holidays for some people,

I guess it's perspective.

Everything is all perspective,

You know.

Yeah,

Sure.

So this spiritual materialism.

So what they're saying is that it's not good to use meditation to remove yourself from this temporarily.

That's not.

I think they were using the word meditation,

But it's not constricted to meditation.

It's like spiritual thought.

So like thinking you are holier than thou type of stuff that's using spirit as like a badge,

As like a material sort of thing.

You know,

It's like it's like when you're talking down to someone and they're like,

What the fuck?

And but you're using all these like spiritual terms and the concepts that make someone feel insignificant.

That's not spirit.

Spirit lifts everybody up.

So if you're doing that,

You're using it as like a material.

You're using it as like a badge.

I feel like that's what spiritual materialism is.

But like using meditation to feel good.

All I said this earlier before we started recording,

It's like,

Fuck yeah.

I want to use it to feel good.

Like,

Of course.

So I'm not totally up on this definition,

But it seems like I know personally I have used meditation for a peaceful state of mind.

There's been plenty of times in my life and whether it's been work issues,

Personal issues,

Relationship issues,

Where I feel like my mind's just like going and going and going and I can't get any peace.

So I will meditate to slow things down and to get a state of peace to go back out and be able to do the things I need to do more efficiently with more of a centered base.

So I don't I mean,

I don't know about that part of it.

Like,

I don't I don't see how that's a bad thing.

I feel like other than meditation,

Like I know our teacher taught us mantras to still our minds and bring some peacefulness in certain situations when things get chaotic.

So I don't see why that's a bad thing.

Like,

I understand the point of meditation,

That unity with my one true infinite self.

But also I'm a human being.

You know what I mean?

Like there's certain things that are going to go on physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally that I'm going to need a little peace from.

I know there's certain mantras I can do.

I know there's certain mooders I can do.

I know there's certain meditations I can do to get a certain state of peace to be able to function more,

I don't know,

In a better way in the regular world.

No,

No,

I think that definition is that part of it isn't I don't know if that's what the real meaning is.

Like I'm looking at more things.

I like this.

It says term describes mistakes spiritual seekers commit,

Which turn the pursuit of spirituality into an ego building pursuit.

That I can get down with.

Yeah.

And it's saying conventionally,

It's you describe capitalist and spiritual narcissism.

So commercial efforts such as new age bookstores,

Wealthy lecturers on spirituality,

So on and so forth.

So it's like you're being like,

I am holier than now,

Check me out type stuff because I meditate or because I do the mantras and so on and so forth.

So I think there's a lack of authenticity and it's more the ego thing.

Because I agree with what you're saying.

I think that who doesn't meditate to get a temporary state of peace.

You know what I mean?

I mean,

Ideally you want it all the time,

But shoot,

If you're going through some hard times and you're struggling at that moment,

You meditate to feel better.

If you're meditating to make other people think you're cool,

That's when you're rubbing your ego.

In the definition that Andy said,

To me,

It kind of sounded more like spiritual capitalism instead of spiritual materialism.

That might be a better way of saying it for sure.

But there's definitely those people that we've come across that are like,

They're bragging about what retreat they've gone to because of the teacher.

Or they're bragging about what books they read because of the teacher or I got my yoga certification through this person because it's more like a braggadocious thing.

Yeah,

I'm a 200 hour,

I'm a 500 hour.

Or if we tell somebody to get in the course,

They'll say,

No,

No,

No,

You mean Shavasana.

Yeah,

But there was a conference we were at,

There was a conference that the three of us were at,

And there was someone that was speaking,

That everyone was throwing out the keynote out there.

This person was still most amazed.

And I don't know if they really got what he was saying or if they were just saying it because it was the cool spiritual thing to be saying at the time.

It wasn't like,

I remember listening to the person being like,

All right,

That was all right.

We've seen a lot of people speak and heard a lot of teachers and I've been,

I mean,

Maybe it just didn't speak to me,

But I feel like a lot of people that were like bragging over this person,

It was more about that that was the hip person or the cool person to be talking about.

And that was the reason they were saying it.

Like basically like idolizing somebody outside of yourself when it's really about kind of tapping into your inner self and you know,

Being your own inner guru instead of like pushing somebody up on a pedestal.

I got these yoga,

Instead of like,

I'm in this practice or for the practice,

Like,

Oh,

I got these yoga pants from Lululemon.

You know what I mean?

Like that's how they were treating this individual that was speaking.

It wasn't like,

You know what I mean?

I got regular yoga pants,

But I'm actually doing the practice.

It was just like,

No,

Look at my yoga pants because these are amazing yoga pants from Lululemon.

Yeah.

So if you're doing spiritual practices to brag or for serving your ego in general and not for like self-healing and other developments,

Then it's probably materialistic.

I'm thinking of it as like a spiritual flex.

You're trying to like flex on people.

Like you didn't do like a five day retreat while I have that,

You know,

You know,

I'm definitely more advanced than you.

And it's like everyone's on their own path.

How could you even tell?

I mean,

I don't even know when I'd have time to go do a five day retreat.

You know,

Just to like disappear for five.

I would love to,

But some people are just affluent enough or have the opportunity enough to just be able to disappear for five days to do a retreat.

But another thing that falls in that vibe is that like good vibes only,

You know,

No bad vibes.

Get your bad vibes out of here.

It's like,

I get it.

You know,

We're humans.

We experience like a spectrum of emotions like good vibes only.

Fuck that.

I feel good vibes all the time,

But I'm capable enough to feel it all and push through it and understand what's going on.

You can't have good vibes all the time.

That's impossible.

And I feel like that's materialistic trying to like control your feelings in such a way that you're not allowed to feel pain and anger and hurt.

Definitely.

And that's all part of the human experience.

And like,

You know,

While going back to what Ali was saying,

Like,

Yeah,

You definitely need these practices in your life.

Like it's practical application to these mindfulness or contemplative practices to be able to get you out of those ups and downs of the human experience.

So,

Yeah,

I think that people can say that is part of spiritual materialism.

But I don't think that,

You know,

Since we dissected that on the table,

That that's really in our definition.

I think it's extremely evident in society,

Though,

You know,

When we're thinking about it.

I know in the conferences we go to,

Like Ali said,

With the speaker and people are like,

Oh,

Wow,

That was amazing.

And I want to take it down a little bit of level,

Just the people going to a lot of these places.

Everyone seems to be like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I meditate.

I do this,

The yoga pants,

The crystals,

The all this stuff.

But then when you really talk to them,

You can see they don't meditate like they don't have a practice.

Right.

And they're just putting on this front to look cool,

To be like,

Check me out.

I'm like a holy person or I'm enlightened or I'm,

You know,

Like you see it all the time.

Right.

Yeah,

It's kind of mind blowing.

I never heard of this before.

And it really is very,

Very,

It's very clear and evident in society these days.

I just thought of a thought of a new one.

So it's like,

David,

You do what you do without worrying about what people think about you.

All right,

Here we go.

Don't hate on me.

But politics and Christianity,

How you have politics like saying like,

Let's sit down in prayer and then pass a law that doesn't serve any person at all.

What's up with that?

That's spiritual materialism.

God bless America.

Our teacher talked to us about a lot was as you go deeper on your spiritual path,

Your ego is always a part of who you are and wants to express itself.

It's not going anywhere.

Like your ego is always going to be there,

But your ego starts getting more creative.

So like just as you go deeper on your own spiritual journey,

Having to be more vigilant,

Like we were talking about spiritual flexing earlier,

Like you have to be more vigilant to notice when you are spiritually flexing because your ego does get really,

Really creative.

And you could be doing it and think you're coming from a very,

Very genuine place,

But it might take someone else around you to show you that like,

Yeah,

You're practicing that spiritual materialism right now.

You might not even be aware of it just because your ego is a part of you.

And that's what you it's just it's always going to be there and it's going to express itself.

So you have to be aware.

And I don't know.

But I remember that's just something he always talked to us about was just as you go deeper on your path,

Like the spiritual flexing does happen.

But it's just the creativity of your ego.

Reviews

Wowwww! What an excellent audio! It really made me realize where I stand on my journey. Thank you everyone 😌💌

Powerful and thought provoking.
🙏 keeping it real

Good talk..a true spiritual path will help you to get over your ego and follow the being of love

Interesting thank you

Thought provoking I had not considered this before. Thank you

I really liked listening to this and thought there was a lot of good info and some fun personalities.

Great talk!

Great conversation and I LOVE that 3 men are sharing this perspective!!! Thank you 🙏

Good to keep these things in mind and be aware of when they start to creep up in our own selves

What a great topic of conversation, I completely understood what you all were conveying. Thank you for that eye opener.

Great no nonsense discussion by you guys. Definitely have noticed this from time to time in my journey. Peace!

Very good. This was very authentic and genuine talk. Loved content. Thank you 🙏🏽🙏🏽

So much I like here: the authenticity, the realness, down to earth language and relating. I'm going to watch out for my spiritual flexing, thank you!

Another great talk

really insightful conversation, So true! Loved this, thank you gentlemen. Love and blessings 💙 x

Very interesting discussion of how ego injects itself into the spiritual. Thanks.

Well said. Very enlightening. That Ego, like a sleeping dragon. Ever ready to spew fire.

WOW❗️ Thanks for this INTELLIGENT and INSIGHTFUL discussion❣️
I KNEW it was only 10 minutes, but I was so into it that when it stopped I was left wanting more!
Leave it to the human ego to mess up a good thing. 🙄
🙏🏻💕