29.  What is materialism?  Why is it wonderful?  Why is it dangerous?

Summary:

•	Materialism has two meanings: one meaning is the scientific idea that everything physical is composed of matter (made of atoms) and of natural forces (such as gravity); the other refers to a lifestyle that treats money and possessions as more important than spiritual or moral values.  Most people assume that something is “real” only if they can sense it physically.

•	Materialism can be wonderful when it inspires awe, such as a beautiful landscape, or a starry night sky, or something made very skillfully by human hands.  Appreciating these things is healthy and not the same as worshipping them.  Respecting the physical world is necessary for human survival.

•	Materialism becomes harmful when people try to satisfy non-material needs—like meaning, love, or identity—using physical things.  That turns materialism into a form of idolatry.  Choices become driven by fear and greed, instead of love.  Every major religion warns that greed is spiritually harmful: greed leads people away from compassion, family, and wisdom; instead, it encourages fear, selfishness, and destructive behavior.

•	Greed becomes especially dangerous when people treat their possessions as their identity and their worth as people.  Whenever their possessions are threatened, greedy people can become desperate or even violent because they believe that losing their possessions means losing themselves.

•	Greed is common because it is a symptom of the ego.  The ego measures a person’s value by appearance, status, and ownership.  The ego fears being perceived as worthless without these things, so it clings to materialism and encourages other people to do the same.

•	The belief that the ego is the “real you” is only an assumption.  Your soul is non-material.  Believing in your soul helps to you separate yourself from the ego’s lies.

•	Rejecting greed does not require harming or punishing yourself.  Self-punishment is another trick of the ego.  Self-punishment may appear to be spiritual devotion, but it saddens God in the same way that a loving parent is saddened by children who deliberately hurt themselves.

•	Greed is not the root cause of the world’s problems.  Greed is only a symptom of the ego.  Healing requires addressing the ego itself, not attacking the symptom.

•	When you stop believing that your ego is your true self and, instead, choose unconditional love, the ego loses its power, and greed naturally fades away.

The word materialism has two meanings.  Philosophers and scientists use the word as a description of physical existence.  Materialism as physical existence refers to everything made of atoms and the subatomic particles that atoms are made of.  It also includes four fundamental forces of nature: gravity; electromagnetism, which is a combination of electricity and magnetism; and two forces pertaining to atoms, called the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. 

Most of us do not use these technical terms when we describe physical existence.  If something can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted, then we usually assume that it has physical existence.  And we assume that physical existence is reality.  In most European languages the word reality comes from the Latin word realis, which means “real.”  It is also related to another Latin word, res, which means “thing.”  Among philosophers and scientists, materialism is a belief that the fundamental substance of reality is physical matter and that everything, including thoughts and consciousness, can be explained by material interactions and processes.  Your brain is a physical thing; when you have thoughts and emotions, they occur because your brain is operating physically as a biological machine, using tiny amounts of chemicals and electricity.

The second meaning of the word materialism is simpler and involves a spiritual choice: it means emphasizing material wealth and physical things over non-material pursuits; it is a belief that material possessions and physical comfort are more important than spiritual values.  Using this meaning, we usually associate materialism with greed. 

Greed is an obsession with collecting and owning physical possessions.  For thousands of years, most of the world’s religions have warned us against greed.  Here are some examples:

• Judaism: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.  This, too, is meaningless.” — Holy Bible, Book of Ecclesiastes 5:10.
• Christianity: “Watch out!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.  Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” — Holy Bible, Gospel of Luke 12:15
• Islam: “Beware of greed, for it was only greed that destroyed those before you.  It commanded them to be miserly, and they did so.  It commanded them to sever their family ties, and they did so.  It commanded them to behave wickedly, and they did so.” — Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1698
• Hinduism: “There are three gates leading to hell of self-destruction: lust, anger, and greed.  Therefore, abandon these three.” — Bhagavad Gita 16:21
• Buddhism: “Riches ruin only the foolish, not those in quest of the Beyond.  By craving for riches, the witless man ruins himself as well as others.” — Dhammapada 355
• Daoism: “There is no crime greater than greed; no disaster greater than discontentment; no mistake greater than to desire endless possessions.  Thus, when one is gratified with self-contentment, true contentment can long endure.” — Dao De-Jing 46:2
• Confucianism: “The gentleman understands what is right, whereas the petty man understands profit.” — Analects 4.16

When people assume that materialism is the only reality, they may easily assume that their own value as human beings depends on the material things each person creates or collects.  And when those things are threatened, such people will desperately try to protect their things, sometimes using violence and even cruelty, because their things represent more than something physical.  Their things represent who they are as human beings, or so they assume.  They measure their own worth based on their things.  Without their things, they assume that life has no meaning.  Without their things, they believe they are worthless, failures as people, utterly contemptable, worse than nothing at all.  They are obsessed with greed because they either lack love or have distorted love, and the basic reason is fear.

Yet, if greed is so terrible, why is greed so common?  Entire economies run on greed.  The desire for money has encouraged the creation of many, many useful technologies, including many sophisticated medicines, and likewise the creation of much of our art, music, and literature.  Many of us, perhaps most of us, have benefited from greed.  The desire for money was not the only factor, but money was a factor.  Not all profit involves greed, but when profits are deemed to be unfair or excessive, greed was probably involved.

Greed is common because greed is a symptom of a deeper problem: the ego.  The ego is obsessed with possessions, with appearances, with vanity.  And for these reasons, the ego’s fears and its lies intertwine with materialism.  Greed is a spiritual decision made by the ego.  Greed is dangerous because greed obeys the ego. 

Materialism can be a philosophy of physical existence, and materialism can be a philosophy of greed.  Either way, materialism as a philosophy becomes dangerous when you treat it as a way to satisfy non-material needs.  Materialism becomes a form of idolatry, which is the worship of something other than God.  Worship in this sense is not about attending religious services, it is about a person’s daily priorities.  A greedy person can attend religious services and believe that he is worshipping God, but in his daily behavior he worships materialism because, nearly every day, his choices are greedy. 

Humans have non-material needs, but we also have material needs, including for food and shelter.  Humans on Earth cannot survive without having at least some respect for their physical environment.  That respect includes understanding the risks and benefits of the climate, of the terrain, of the plants and animals.  You can respect the materialism of physical existence without worshipping it. 

Furthermore, materialism is wonderful when it represents something created by God, such as a magnificent vista, or an immense mountain, or the stars we see in the night sky.  We feel awe.  (You can feel awe even without believing that God exists.)  Materialism is also wonderful when it is something created by people—and you are emotionally moved by its design, its form, its artistry, its crafting.  You can appreciate the thought and hard work that went into it.  It can be a device that works well, or a form of art or music.  You can respect the dedication of the people who created it.  Respect for what others have accomplished is not the same as worshipping materialism.

Materialism is dangerous when it becomes a form of idolatry.  God is unconditional love and forgiveness, and so God understands that idolatry is a spiritual mistake.  Knowing the importance of unconditional love does not require a belief in God.  Idolatry is wrong because it does not worship unconditional love.  Idolatry worships the lies of the ego.  It harms your spiritual growth as a person and as a soul.  It is a choice that disappoints God because God is saddened to see you enslaved to your ego.  God opposes idolatry because your ego is lying to you, telling you the lie that you are worthless unless you possess material things or are presenting a particular image to other people. 

God cares about your soul and your spirit.  Your ego cares about only itself.  Your ego does not care about you, and yet your ego cannot exist without your permission.  When you assume that your ego is supposedly the real you, then your spirit is enslaved.  All of the supposed reasons that your ego uses to convince you that your ego is the real you involve materialism, but your soul is non-material.  You may believe that your soul does not exist and that the essence of you will die when your body dies, but your soul still deserves your belief that your soul exists because that belief helps to separate you from your ego.  

When you were a child, your original teeth eventually fell away because those baby teeth were always meant to be temporary.  You have also lost strands of hair.  Those teeth and hair consist of physical material, but they were not the real you.  Those things contain microscopic cells that contain your biological DNA, your biological essence—but your ego lacks even that.  The idea that your ego is you is only an opinion, only an assumption, not a fact.  Did your soul make that assumption?  Did your spirit make that assumption?  Or did your ego make that assumption?

 Some people want to hate greed but retain the ego.  They imagine that a world without greed would be a better world.  Perhaps it might, but greed is not the cause of the world’s problems.  Greed is a symptom, not the cause, and hating the symptom will not heal the patient.

There are occasions when you may choose to deprive yourself of something so that somebody else may prosper.  That choice is a form of devotion, a sacrifice to help someone else.  Unfortunately, hatred of oneself can distort the idea of sacrifice into a form of self-abuse.  When devotion becomes a form of self-abuse, it becomes a lie.  When you choose to reject materialism for your spiritual health, that choice should not require you to deliberately harm yourself, whether physically or emotionally.  This is because deliberate self-abuse replaces one lie with another—the lie that you have conquered your ego, when in fact your ego is hiding within your acts of self-abuse.  Deliberate self-abuse is your ego is trying to prove your devotion—by abusing yourself.  If you believe that self-abuse is a sacrifice performed in devotion to God, that belief is a lie.  God does not need proof of your devotion.  God knows your devotion better than you know yourself.  God is saddened when you abuse yourself, as any loving parent would be saddened by a child deliberately committing self-abuse, whether in words, deeds, or thoughts.  Deliberate self-abuse is your ego sacrificing yourself to your ego.  That is why it is a lie.  Your ego is lying to God, and it is lying to you.  You can reject greed without harming yourself.  You can appreciate materialism without succumbing to greed.

Relinquish the assumption that your ego is you.  Worship unconditional love.  Then you can appreciate materialism for what materialism really is, not for what your ego desperately wants it to be.  Relinquish your ego, not with self-abuse but with unconditional love.  For as your ego falls away, greed will also fall away.