Materialism reduces you to a number and glamorizes things that make you number Gita 16 09

Transcript

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Whatever is your will, I’ll accept it. Does this answer your question? Materialism summarizes things that make you number. Number is basically mathematics, measurable things.
And materialism often reduces us to numbers. Because materialism holds that matter is all that exists. And within materialism, there is the idea that there are various other schools of thought.
But a prominent school of thought is that with scientism coming into the world, that is that everything can be explained through science. And science essentially deals with mathematics. Science is reduced to mathematics where everything can be reduced to numbers.
So just as we might have a social security number in a country or a roll number in a class. Now that is used as a referent. But that number is not who we are.
But materialism holds that it’s not just that a number is a referent for us. A number is what we are. Because what makes us distinctive from others? Materialism ultimately reduces each one of us down to mechanical formulae, mechanical interactions of fundamental particles according to impersonal laws that can all be ultimately, at least so is believed, can be explained in terms of a single equation.
So of course, human behavior is extremely unpredictable. And we can’t be essentialized down to simply a number. However, this is what materialism does.
And that’s why it’s a soul destroying philosophy. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about broadly anti-spiritual way of looking at the world. And therein it states that those who accept this way, they reject the supreme spiritual reality and they reject the soul, the individual spiritual reality.
And Krishna in 16.9 says, एतां दृष्टिमवश्टभ्या नश्टात्मानो अल्पबुद्धया प्रभवन्त्यूग्रकर्माणः ख्षयाय जगतो हितहाम् नश्टात्मानो So the soul refers to the conscious being that we are. But that is reduced to certain biochemical phenomena, the electrochemical signals in the brain cells. And thus, it reduces us to a number.
And then, what do we do in life? Materialism also presents us with endless allurements. And those allurements, they further de-spiritualize our consciousness. First of all, in our conception itself, materialism, self-conception, we are de-spiritualized.
And then, we become further numbed as we keep craving and slaving for one thing after another and indulging in it. And then our consciousness becomes more and more numb. It becomes number.
And thus, we end up living at a degraded, diminished consciousness, barely existing. Like robots, like program machines, chasing one sensation after another without any meaning or purpose in our lives. And that is a gloomy existence indeed.
The way out of such a gloomy existence is by gaining the spiritual knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita, which reveals that our identity and destiny are far beyond our material body and the material world we live in. And the Gita not only helps us, doesn’t reduce us to a number or glamorizes things that make us number. It actually helps us transcend material existence.
And if we live the Gita, then by the time our days will be numbered, we will have disconnected ourselves from material attachments and we will attain the eternal destination. Thank you. Hare Krishna.