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By Kelley Harrell
In a culture in which more is better and excess is revered, the ramifications of consumerist decadence on spiritual wellbeing are pervasive. The urge to overconsume is everywhere. Try finding a unit price of a single item that is cheaper than buying in bulk. Economic considerations aside, the commercial appeal to the baser hunter-gatherer mentality always pushes, "Why have one when you can have three?!" Value meals, bulk household supplies, combo insurance premiums, BOGO clothing ... You name it, we bloat it, then encourage all our friends to join in. We over eat, we over consume, we overspend, frequently all at once. ----------------------------------- Individuals who overeat, over-consume and hoard may be poorly balanced spiritually. The etheric field is comprised of the body, the chakra system, the body's meridians, and the subtly perceivable electrical and ethereal space around the whole works. What we call life force (chi, ki or prana, depending on your cultural influence) moves smoothly throughout the etheric field when we're healthy, connecting us with the etheric fields of others, of the planet, etc. When we're not well, the flow of life force gets out of balance; thus, we don't connect so well with our environment.
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Another spiritual factor influencing the drive to overconsume is commonly called soul loss, or what I think of as "soul shelving." When we suffer a trauma from which we feel we aren't moving on, the shamanic narrative interprets that state as a facet of the soul having become inaccessible. Everyone experiences soul loss at some point, as it is a natural state of healing and growth. When we need access to that soul aspect and can't reconnect with it problems arise, such as chronic patterns of depression, distress in relationships and in fulfilling personal obligations. If soul "loss" isn't recognized for the spiritual lack that it is, we attempt to fill ourselves with anything that will temporarily make us feel alive.
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Disregard for the self reflects disregard for the environment. In his book, "Green Psychology: Transforming Our Relationship to the Earth," Ralph Metzner describes that interconnectedness as resulting in ecocide. Modernized humans, by virtue of how we live, are at war with Nature. The trash from living lavishly has to be discarded in some ocean, some forest. The resources to supply our demand have to be extracted from some precious naturescape. By harming the planet we're harming ourselves, and vice versa. On a level closer to home, we look again at the etheric field, through which every thing is connected. What we don't heal in ourselves we pass on to others. It shows up in our relationships, our children, our work performance. It affects how we live in the space around us, how we treat ourselves and others. Our obligation to heal our spiritual wounds lies not only with ourselves but to every thing.
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Please see HERE for the entire article...
It might be helpful to read about the soul and its importance - how to grow it, and how to keep it healthy throughout your life.
Finally, a quote from The Urantia Book about materialism:
195:6.7 The mechanistic naturalism of some supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.
Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe. But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but religion validates the conservation of men’s souls—it concerns their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.
The materialistic sociologist of today surveys a community, makes a report thereon, and leaves the people as he found them. Nineteen hundred years ago, unlearned Galileans surveyed Jesus giving his life as a spiritual contribution to man’s inner experience and then went out and turned the whole Roman Empire upside down.
Link to External Source Article