Can materialism and spirituality go together?

People who take a spiritual path in life are often found asking a common question—can materialism and spirituality go together? It is a topic that is discussed too often. Do money and spirituality share any common characteristics or are they entirely different. Let’s get an insight into the relationship between materialism and spirituality.

In today’s world, money is found to be the root cause of people getting tense, becoming stressed, and facing several other emotional problems. Their life centers on money and the various pleasures that it provides. It is the cradle of various issues in life. People are becoming increasingly materialistic and getting detached from the spiritual aspects of life. If people have any passion in life, it centers on money, because it has become a common thought that one can buy happiness in life with money.

Which happiness are we talking about over here? Is it the happiness of the material world that money can buy for us? The money that can run your family, buy food and clothes for your wife and children? All this is a far cry from spirituality.

If you are so caught up in materialism, you cannot experience spirituality. Spirituality involves realizing the self and being one with the inner peace. While money can buy you happiness in the material world, spirituality provides contentment to the inner being. It can not be bought by money but can only be realized by the interaction of the soul with the good spirit.

Many saints have said centuries ago that spirituality, which is also termed as ‘bhakti’ (devotion to the supreme lord), is very detached from the material world. The underlying reason is that spirituality pulls you inwards and creates a detachment from the mortal traps of the physical world. On the other hand, money is like a ditch that makes man more and more engrossed in worldly deeds. A materialistic person may not be much concerned about the Almighty, morality and the good deeds. All that he may be interested in is the money and the pleasures that it brings along.

However, some people hold a contrasting view to this. They feel that money and spirituality go hand in hand. They argue that money inculcates self worth in a person, which is not felt by a poor fellow. If you do not have money, you lower your desires, your sense of feeling and admiration of God affecting your spiritual sensibilities. Their contention is that money makes you live the purpose God has bestowed you with. But, some saints believe that money distracts an individual from his or her purpose in life, which is simply to be a good human being.

Nevertheless, money and spirituality are like two sides of the same coin. They go together; only when one side is up the other is down. And it depends on you which side you want to keep up. When you focus on money, spirituality takes the back seat and the same is true the other way round.