Materialism is today’s prominent worldview.
Most people may not consciously choose it, but they adopt it subconsciously.
Why? Because the contemporary culture
aggressively glamorizes material things as sources of pleasure and symbols of
prestige. Getting carried away by this pervasive propaganda, most people live
as if matter is all that matters.
Fanatical materialists worship the deity of
matter, demanding for it not just priority but exclusivity.
Just as any school of thought has its
right-wing extremists, so does materialism. Fanatical materialists worship the
deity of matter, demanding for it not just priority but exclusivity. Holding
matter to be the only reality, they dismiss everything non-material as a
figment of imagination – they banish it to the Siberia of hallucination. What
they often don’t realize is that by championing such strident materialism, they
banish themselves to the same Siberia.
Whatever we do, we do it with our
consciousness. Fanatical materialists use their consciousness to deny the
existence of everything non-material. But consciousness is utterly different
from the insentience that characterizes matter. It is neither explicable nor
replicable through matter. Consciousness is eminently non-material. So rigid
materialism requires the denial of the existence of consciousness.
But our consciousness is what we
essentially are. Our capacities to think, feel and decide – all hallmarks of
consciousness – define us. Without consciousness, we cease to exist. That’s how
materialists who deny the existence of consciousness end up denying their own
existence.
Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (16.09)
declares that such a shortsighted materialists destroy their own souls. Though
the soul is by constitution indestructible, but it is destructible in cognition
in the sense that all perception of its existence can be obliterated by a
dogmatically anti-spiritual worldview.
Far more fulfilling than such
self-destroying worldview is the self-actualizing Weltanschauung delineated in
the Gita. It explains coherently our spiritual identity and glorious eternal
destiny, and invites us to attain that destiny by the time-honored process ofbhakti-yoga.
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