In This Episode…

“When we let go of our attachment to the separate self, we can begin to discover who and what we really are, which is so much bigger, so much deeper, so much more extraordinary than we could have imagined. At that point, a much larger, more meaningful life begins to unfold through us that’s no longer a personal journey of accumulation and achievement. It’s an experience of flowing with and participating in something grand. We discover that we are a fluid, dynamic piece of this much greater unfolding life process, which is the opposite of a materialistic orientation.”
—Craig Hamilton

In this episode, Craig explores a common hurdle in meditation and spiritual growth: how our natural desire to achieve something through practice—like personal improvement, existential relief, or blissful experiences—can actually block our progress.

True spiritual growth is about letting go, not acquiring more. This can be difficult to accept because it challenges some deeply ingrained ways we relate to life. As spiritual seekers, we aim to awaken and tap into the profound potentials of meditation.

However, we often approach the spiritual path—and life itself—with a tendency to grasp, hold on to, and accumulate experiences for self-enhancement and self-confidence. In doing so, we miss the true essence of spiritual awakening.

So, what’s the solution? To reach our deepest spiritual aspirations, we need to approach meditation and spiritual growth differently—essentially ‘wanting it without wanting it.’

This might sound tricky, but in this episode, Craig shares key insights on how to shift your mindset from one of achievement and acquisition to one of receptivity and surrender. From this subtle shift, the deeper dimensions of meditation and awakening will unfold.

If you’re interested in exploring more of Craig’s approach to meditation, you’re invited to tune in to a 90-minute online workshop Craig will be hosting called Meditation 2.0 – The Miracle of Direct Awakening. Register for free at: FreeMeditationWorkshop.com

Discover More about Craig’s Awakened Life Membership Program

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Spiritual materialism is a term that was coined by the 20th-century Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He wrote a book called, “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.”

The idea of spiritual materialism is based on the reality that we are human beings who have been going through our lives with an attitude of achievement, acquisition, accumulation, getting things, and having things.

This doesn’t only mean concrete, physical things. It includes getting and having physical things, but it also includes having experiences, achieving things that we can then hold on to mentally as our achievements, and using these to enhance our self-image.

What Does Spiritual Materialism Look Like?

If you think about it, you have a belief that you possess a “self” that’s going through life. It’s always trying to add things to itself and learn more things. Now, in the present, I’m smarter and wiser and know more than I did in the past, therefore I’ve expanded myself through knowledge. I’m experiencing more things, and I’m enriching myself in the way that diverse experiences do, adding all that wealth of experience to the self.

Of course, material acquisition can be a part of that — physical possessions that we accumulate and add to our sense of self and that mean something about me. “I have these things, relationships, and even people that I accumulate.”

We go through life building up the self with all of these possessions. Then we come to the spiritual path at some point. We get interested in spiritual things, we take up spiritual practice, and naturally, we relate to the spiritual path in the same way.

Now this separate, solid, individual self who’s going through life, starts thinking it is going to add spiritual experiences to its wealth of experience. I’m going to add spiritual insights, spiritual knowledge and understanding, to that wealth of knowledge that I’m already accumulating.

And from this perspective, spiritual awakening or enlightenment is the ultimate thing the self could have. It is the ultimate thing I could gain for myself. Then, whatever our individual version of enlightenment is — be happy all the time, be blissful, be contented, be wise, be strong and clear and resilient, and in touch with a deeper context — these would all be wonderful things that I would have.

How Does Spiritual Materialism Manifest in You?

Take a moment to reflect on the journey I described above of how we go through life. We all have different things we value, and we accumulate and acquire and achieve different things that are aligned with our values.

But there is always the underlying sense of enhancing and building up the self with a wealth of knowledge, experience, understanding, insight, love, connection, relationships, and possessions. And when we become interested in spirituality, we engage that same process as the ultimate way to fully fulfill the self, to make the self truly grand in all kinds of ways.

This orientation might be fine in many different areas of life. In any conventional sense of living a human life, the desire to accumulate things of value drives us forward. It drives evolution forward, drives innovation forward, and it’s contributing, to some degree, to all of the progress that humans have made in so many ways over the centuries.

But when it comes to the spiritual path and spiritual awakening in particular, there is something wrong with this picture.

What’s the Problem with Spiritual Materialism?

The problem with having a materialistic, accumulative, achievement-oriented relationship to our spiritual path is that spiritual awakening is about realizing that who and what we already are at the deepest level is already whole, full and complete, and reality at the deepest level is a glorious, sacred event that is not missing anything.

Reality as it is, is already full and complete. You could even say that, at its essence, reality is perfect, not lacking anything. Therefore, we ourselves are not lacking anything in our essence.

Moreover, the idea that I’m a solid, separate self, going through life accumulating things, and becoming more and better and bigger and fuller through all of this — even that is a misconception.

Spiritual awakening reveals to us that there might be an individual who’s going through life and having experiences, but, fundamentally, who and what we are isn’t that separate sense of self. Whatever the self is, it isn’t a tangible solid entity that can accumulate things.

What we truly are is a fluid, dynamic process that is interwoven with all other beings, who are also fluid, dynamic processes, all of us part of one big, fluid, dynamic, unfolding process of consciousness and life evolving.

Taking ourselves to be a solid, tangible self, and then thinking the way to “make it” in life is to enhance, fortify, strengthen, deepen and embolden that self, is in fact the very idea that’s the biggest barrier to our awakening.

Spiritual Awakening Breaks the Spell of Spiritual Materialism

When we let go of all that sense of self, the insistence on me, and the separate self against the world, then we can begin to discover who and what we really are. It is so much bigger, so much deeper, so much more extraordinary, that a whole other life begins to unfold through us that is not really a personal life in the way we had known.

It’s not a personal journey of accumulation and achievement, but an unfolding, giving, and flowing. There is participation, certainly, in something grand. But we’re simply being a part of something, a participant in a fluid, dynamic piece of the much bigger, unfolding life process. And this is the opposite of a materialistic orientation.

Spiritual awakening gives us a sense that I don’t need anything for me, as in the little self. I’m already whole and complete. So what do I want, then? Having broken the spell of spiritual materialism and having let go of this constant orientation of wanting or even needing to get somewhere other than where I am, the question arises: What do you want when you’re awakened?

Awakening to a Higher Motive/Desire

What desires exist in that awakening consciousness, and in that process of awakening, which we’re now embodying and participating in? Are we free of desire? Do we become inert and sit there because there’s no reason to do anything since we don’t want anything, and that’s the end of it?

Some spiritual teachings might have you think that’s the end: no more need, no more want, no more movement, and stillness forever in all directions. But that’s not how it really works.

When we awaken spiritually, we naturally want this awakened consciousness and depth to become visible in the world. We want it to become manifest, expressed, seen, and known. We want the bug that’s infected us to spread like an enlightenment virus through humanity.

We’ve become aware that it was the belief in spiritual materialism — the belief that something’s missing, that I’m not enough, I don’t have enough, that I need more for me — that has, in some sense, been driving almost all the problems in the world.

We want that insight to be known. We want this understanding to be discovered. And very practically, we want goodness to manifest. We want truth spoken, seen, and known. We want to elevate and uplift the world and to participate in that process. So, even stronger desires will start to emerge as we awaken.

Stepping out of the Wanting Self

So the goal of awakening is not an absence of wanting. But if we want to awaken to the fullness that is always here, we need to practice not wanting things to be any different than they are right now. This is a direct way to align with the fullness of reality as it is.

We need to practice not trying to move away from what is, in all the practices we’re doing. This practice allows us to deconstruct or step out of the momentum of wanting in the little self, which the poet Kabir called “the wanting creature inside me.” We want to step out of that and awaken to that which doesn’t want for itself, but that nonetheless is a driving force toward the good, the true and the beautiful, the elevation of everything, the evolution toward our ultimate potential.

Wanting Nothing From Meditation

One way we can cut right to the heart of any subtle or latent spiritual materialism that’s driving our practice is to anchor our practice itself in a posture of wanting nothing from our meditation. Even if your meditation is a practice of wanting nothing, we can take that on as a subtle goal.

When we practice embracing what is, being content with what is, taking a position that nothing is lacking, nothing is missing, sometimes there’s still an undercurrent of wanting to get to this place that I’ve described, where there is the drive to our ultimate potential.

It’s as if we want to get there and say to ourselves, “I’m going to do this practice to try to get there in the practice. I’m trying to get to this place where I’ve really discovered the great freedom from wanting, the great liberation, the great awakened consciousness. I want to get to that in this meditation session, so I’m going to do the practice diligently because I want to get to that place.”

The operating system is undermining the software program here, because our core approach, our orientation to the whole endeavor, is still rooted in a sense of lack and in trying to get somewhere else.

This was a profound turning point for me, on one six-month long meditation retreat. It was probably about three months into the retreat, and the leader of the retreat gave me an invitation. He said, “Why don’t you start staying up all night in meditation, but when you do, don’t want anything from the meditation?”

It was essentially an invitation to meditate twenty-four-hours a day from then on.

And the invitation was to just give yourself to that much practice, with no desire to get anything from the practice. You do the practice for its own sake, come what may.

The Freedom of Not Trying to Achieve Anything

To some degree, I probably had thought I was already coming from that place. I’d had quite a profound retreat up to that point. But taking on that new orientation, whenever I would sit down, or stand up — because it was all meditation at that point — there was a sense of “I’m not trying to get somewhere. I’m not trying to achieve anything. I’m not trying to make something happen, or take something from this, I’m just giving myself to it.”

This orientation liberated something new, like a tap on the head of the coconut in just the right spot. It opened me up to a much more liberated relationship to the practice. Then the practice just started deepening naturally, because I wasn’t trying to steer it myself toward depth.

I hope this brings you more clarity about the belief that awakening means coming to a point in life where we’re an inert blob that wants nothing and does nothing, and is of no use to the world, and not engaged.

Spiritual awakening ultimately points to the opposite of that. To come to a place where we’re fueled by a much more profound motivation, and a much deeper wanting, actually requires us to cross the Rubicon, to fully leave behind the wanting self that believes something is missing.