Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Materialsim and Spiritualism) that was published in Newsband

Materialism and Spiritualism

There is a thing called destiny. There is a case of a prominent politician who showed promise of becoming the Prime Minister of his country. But he is diagnosed with a terminal disease. His dreams are shattered. He is inconsolable. A famous singer loses his voice due to a serious throat ailment. He has plenty of money to be able to live quite comfortably, but he misses giving live performances to his adoring audiences. A model is aging. She doesn’t get as many assignments as she would get before. She fondly remembers her hay days when sponsors would be competing for her time.

In all the above three cases, the victims are sad people. Let us compare these cases with those of spiritual people. One person is making steady progress on the devotional path. He contacts a deadly disease. He prays to God for quick end, and turns his attention to afterlife. Another devotee, who preaches to large masses, loses his voice after an accident. He now reaches the general public through spiritual writing, and he loves it. A spiritualist has aged, and is unable to travel. Devout persons gather to hear him in his ashram. He now trains many young disciples who carry on the noble work of their guru. 

What the above cases prove is the point that there is no retirement for people engaged in the service of God. There are always many spiritual practices one can do; age is neither a bar nor a handicap.

Thus it is proved that everything material has to end at some point. A materialist always broods the loss he suffered. He feels deprived of something he had earned by great labour. This is not the case of spiritualists. They go on achieving more and more. They are not bothered about death. They firmly believe that they will continue in the next life what they finished in the present one.

There is no harm in being a materialist as long as you pursue spiritualism too to a certain extent. If you are combination of materialist and spiritualist you will be in a position to enjoy the best of both the world – material and spiritual. A person who is both materialist and spiritualist will enjoy his materialistic exploits as long as he is fit. But once he loses his fitness it is spiritualism which will come to his rescue and he will not be left high and dry at the end of his life or even much earlier. On the other hand, a materialist who is not a spiritualist is bound to suffer his loss at one stage of life and he begins to get the feeling that life is horrible. The problem of such a person can end only if he decides to become a spiritualist. Such is the power of spiritualism.