“Material progress is meaningless if it does not go hand in hand with moral and spiritual progress.”
The word ‘progress’ generally unfolds before our mind’s eye worldly achievements in terms of money, prosperity, physical comforts, and amenities. Worldly achievements constitute our material progress. Usually, every one of us aims at material progress – economic prosperity, professional success, and more money accruing from it, etc. But is it enough that we achieve only material progress? Has material progress any meaning if it is not accompanied by our moral and spiritual progress?
Most of us crave progress and work for it. But the kind of progress that we work for is only material progress and worldly success. We are over-enthusiastic about repeating spiritual slogans and doctrines but are not keen on practicing them. We pray to God, not for spiritual regeneration, but for worldly success. We are like Claudius in Hamlet; our souls remain below; our words go up. Our feet are on the rungs of the ladder of worldly success with our eyes turned upwards and with our mouths watering for the bunches of ripe grapes. Actually, our religious protestations, prayers, and practices are only a means to an end; we seek God’s intervention to help us in our worldly success – in our material progress. We do not pray for the betterment of our souls. We are down-right hypocrites even when we pray. We do not pause even for a moment and ask ourselves: “What does it matter if we gain the whole world but lose our souls?”
Material progress alone is not enough; it should go hand in hand with spiritual progress. Then only can we become developed, well-integrated individuals? As Carl Jung says: “Out of the fullness of life shall you bring forth your religion: only then will you be blessed.”
It is not that material progress is not at all necessary; it is not that we should take to asceticism, austerity, and poverty, and live like sages. We should achieve material progress; we should enjoy the fruits of science; affluence and prosperity should be achieved, and we should work for prosperity. But prosperity should not blind us to ‘the fruit of the spirit’. Our prosperity should help us evolve ourselves into spiritually mature persons.
‘The fruit of the spirit’ is a phrase used by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians. By ‘the fruit of the spirit’ he means ‘love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity. The qualities listed by Paul are observable human qualities. He gives us another list of qualities that make us less than human. These qualities may be called ‘the fruit of the flesh’ and these are envy, hatred, idolatry, sexual immorality, selfishness, and so on.
A spiritually evolved person is also a spiritually mature person and he shows authenticity, compassion, responsibility, discipline, self-respect, realistic sense of guilt, and co-operative as well as creative approaches to human relationships. He is a man of compassion, integrity, and truth. Spirituality should not be confused with other-worldliness. It is, as the Bahai faith says, enlightenment, which is the result of knowledge, faith, steadfastness, truthfulness, uprightness, fidelity, and humility. It is the same as the Buddha’s way which is to do good, avoid evil, and purify one’s own heart; it is the same as the five constant virtues of Confucian- ism: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity.
Material progress becomes meaningful only when it goes hand in hand with moral and spiritual progress. A poet says that it is not in renunciation that we attain spirituality, but in involvement:
Deliverance is not for me in renunciation, I feel
the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy
wine of various colours and fragrance, filling this
earthen vessel to the brim.
My world will light its hundred different lamps with
thy flame and place them before the altar of thy
temple. No, I will never shut the door of my senses.
The delights of sight and hearing and touch will
bear thy delight.
Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination of
joy, and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.
The poem says that we need not ‘crucify the flesh’ in order to become spiritually mature. What is important is to combine our passions with ‘the fruit of the spirit’. If we kill our passions, we will be sterile in more ways than one and that is not conducive to healthy spiritual life.
The dynamic factors of mature spirituality – courage, love, and wisdom – are intimately interconnected. Courage is acting on the basis of love and wisdom and taking reasonable risks. Love is nurturing oneself and others with courage and wisdom. And wisdom is a healthy balance of reason and intuition and is always open-minded.
The achievement of material progress should not be at the expense of our spiritual development. Healthy spirituality is an ongoing process; it’ helps us develop an integrated personality. A mind that is obsessed with material progress forgets human values. We become less than human. We should become well-integrated individuals by cultivating spirituality in the midst of our preoccupation with the pursuit of material progress.
