Can We Spirtually Develop in a Material World?

Excerpted from The Secret €“ Spiritual Materialism By Peter G. Vajda, PhD. “For the 2% who really, really get it, the Secret is no secret €“ living life from the inside out, trusting without needing to control, experiencing life’s pain as a teacher, surrendering their ego, seeing that life is larger than getting that parking space or Starbucks€¦that it’s not about spiritual materialism.

The Tibetan teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, suggests we be conscious about getting caught up in the lure of spiritual materialism. “When our ego is driving our spiritual development, we’re headed in the wrong direction €” accumulation of stuff and avoiding our emotions is not spiritual maturation.”

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My thoughts: There is nothing wrong with living a good life and enjoying material comfort, but we must not lose sight of the part of the journey that answers the questions “Who we are”? and “Why we are here”? I believe we are here to learn how to be creators in/of our lives and realities, to learn, to grow, to express our authentic selves. It seems a tragic mistake to be so caught up in manifesting the goods, the business, the right stuff, that we overlook what may be a fundamental aspect of our creative process: to birth our higher nature/spirit into this life so we can really LIVE, be present to ourselves and others, to touch each other and our world in life affirming ways and provide nourishment, liberation and freedom for all souls.

Oddly enough, it seems as we attend to growing and nurturing our spiritual selves, the rest of life seems to line up, but then at a certain point the €˜stuff’ does not seem to have the same meaning or preoccupy us as much!