Two Major Worlds of the Globe

Spiritual and material are two different worlds often dealt in philosophy. Being the further vastly unrealistic appearing, very few daring people are courageous to dwell in. However, such a dwelling is not without condemnation.  The chooser of this world is often condemned by dwellers in material world as fugitive of the struggle of life, snobs in the virtuously defined robes as yellow, maroon, white, etc.,  and losers in the race of life.  Nevertheless, dwellers of the spirituality claim of having intimacy with eternal peace and joy which is not possible dwelling in the material world.

Turning the other side of the coin, material world is rather colourful and living in it is an everyday phenomenon. Therefore, it is the world of every one and whether one dares or not has to play his/her part in this huge stage. The dwellers in the spiritual world usually describe life in the world of materialists is meaningless. They further condemn their life (including mine) devoid of peace and joy and the joy that the materialists gain is short lived. There is a presence of hunger, pride, prejudices, egoism, hatred, passion and what not which always put the world in unrest and ensue the rush behind ephemeral and languid fame. The moment there is fame and other moment get surrounded by infamy. Nevertheless, the dwellers in this world identify material gain as the metaphysics of the present world narrative in which profit maximization is the ultimate goal. Therefore, it is obvious that every action performed by the dwellers in this world is well weighted actions with profit in one of its two pans.

It is claimed and believed that dwelling in one of these worlds, the joy of the other world is not possible for the ultimate truth guided by these worlds contradict each other. Perhaps, the notion of binary opposition is applicable here. Furthermore, the ontological premises of these two worlds also stand in opposition believing in subjectivity and objectivity. If analyzed microscopically, the truth prevalent in the world of spirituality comes close to the nature of absoluteness thereby leading it to objectivity whereas the world of materialists claims the obsoleteness of truth on reaching to the latest development.

If we are to talk about the routes that lead us to the destination of truth, the world of spirituality, however, appears to be somehow subjective but from the point of view of the destination itself, the claim turns out to be invalid. For the achievement to be attained by a sensible creature as human being in this world is one – salvation, maybe the paths to be treaded vary. But alternately, the truth of the material world varies to such extent that objectivity remains a dwarf child intensely malnourished. What is the ultimate truth of this world then- profit maximization, freedom, joy, peace, vengeance, power, joys, victory, welfare to self and others, knowledge or something else? Well, having been perplexed with these verities of this materialistic world when the ‘something else’ is chosen, it is claimed that the door to the world of spirituality is opened up. This is another narrow subjectivity in the sense that it offers only two choices either all of the former in the question or only the latter – the something else.

Entrapped between these two worlds there remains another world usually ignored in the world of spirituality and most favored and befriended in the world of materialist which is none other than the ‘Science’ itself. To greater extent, it is taken synonymous to material world. As an instance, on the motion of evolution or creation, it seems to turn the heavy pan of the scale in the side of the materialist thereby winning the faith of those believing in cause and effect. This is where, again, lies the fuel for the burning fire of prolonged debate that seems to go centuries farther. Therefore, it is the strongest contrivance usually used by the dwellers of the material world in repealing the arguments raised by the dwellers of the spiritual one. Being this based on the solid facts, many things have been proved and accepted and the things devoid of proof and evidences have been rejected.  And in doing this, consensus of majority has been gained sooner or later.

Whatever may be the development till the date with regard to these worlds, in fact, deepening the thought into them; invaluable gems for eking out life can be fetched. Making claims may not be appropriate at the time when no guiding paradigm as such exists universally. However, trading into either path solely, at least for me, does not appear a wise choice. For me, value based material world is the choice where I can see the existence of a room for spirituality as well. The past is evident that material world got its source of being from the spirituality itself but the changing demands and advanced desires seem not to fit in it ultimately getting forced to appear as offshoot. Therefore, it may be valid to claim that spirituality consists of a faith relationship with a transcendent power that lies beyond and is independent of the material universe and can exist independent of any religious tradition.

The discussion leads me to conclude that a successful living can be gained by fusing the two ideas into one for self-actualization and identifying the value-based material world. The contrivance that can be brought into practice to serve the end of the fusion can be the active intelligence. The active intellect is often described as a transcendent immaterial entity equivalent to the sphere of the moon which acts as an intermediary between the divine mind and the human intellect. Once the latter has achieved a state of relative perfection by becoming the acquired intellect, the state of understanding the universal and abstract principles behind reality, it receives from the active intellect an emanation from heaven. The active intellect makes the acquired intellect possible, by transmitting from the transcendental world the power that manages to link it with the sublunary world. The active intellect represents the highest level of thought which we human beings can attain, and it reflects the necessity of something outside of us to move our capacity to think into alignment with transcendental reality.

rupendrap@gamil.com