MATERIALISTIC APPROACH
Materialism can hardly be spiritual in its basis, because its basic method is
just the opposite of the spiritual
way of doing things. The spiritual works from within outward, the way of materialism is to work from out inwards.
It makes the inner the result of the outer, fundamentally a phenomenon of Matter and it works upon that view of
things. It seeks to “perfect” humanity by outward means and one of its efforts is to construct a perfect social
machine which will train and oblige men to be what they ought to be. The loss of the ego in the Divine is the spiritual
ideal; here it is replaced by the immolation of the individual to the military and industrial State. Where is there
any spirituality in all that? Spirituality can only come by opening of the mind, vital and physical to the inmost
soul, to the higher Self, to the Divine, and their subordination to the spiritual forces and instrumentation as
channels of the inner Light, the higher Knowledge and Power. Other things, mental, aesthetic, vital, are often
misnamed ‘spirituality’, but they lack the essential character without which the word loses its true significance.
A giant Ignorance surrounds his lore.
Assigned to meet the cosmic mystery
In the dumb figure of a material world,
His passport of entry false and his personage,
He is compelled to be what he is not;
He obeys the Inconscience he has come to rule
And sinks in Matter to fulfill his soul.