MATERIALISTIC vs SPIRITUALITY
Somehow it is a general impression that a spiritual person should not be a materialistic one. If there is some truth in this then we should try to be very clear in our minds of what we mean by this. Do we mean that a person in order to be spiritual or to get closer to God should not own material things like a house, a car, a television, etc and should go into exile in some forest? If we think that this is so then we have to understand that the whole world is material - everything that is on the surface of the Earth, below it and above it, including the air that we breathe is material. The fact that we are in the human form, means that we are material. Our bodies are material - so we need to maintain our bodies by keeping it well fed, well sheltered... The only time that we can absolutely be called non-material in its truest sense, is when we are not in the human form. The answer that we want is how to be a spiritual person on earth, without being a materialist one?
Let us take the example of people like the Pope or Dalai Lama. The Pope does travel in the Pope-mobile and such spiritual people do need to travel by cars and planes. They do enjoy luxuries like the best food, best house, best of all things at their disposal - does that make them materialistic?. If the answer is 'no' - then it is a polite one, because this does make them materialistic. Therefore, the question is not of being non-materialistic - but being materialistic to what degree.
To understand this we need to distinguish our lives between a worldly one and a spiritual one. For a person who has accepted the existence of God there is no escape from the fact that this person now gets involved in worldly ways as well as spiritual ways. Then comes the question of drawing a balance between these ways. The moment that a person prays or even just thinks of God or any of the angels, the person is in God's world. Drawing a balance simply means that some may spend more time to think of God than the other. Some may spend five minutes in a month, some may spend five minutes in a day and others may spend a few hours a day.
A person can be 100% materialistic but no one can be 100% spiritual. Even if a person wants to do absolutely nothing but be in God's thoughts and do only God's work, this cannot be done to the extent of devoting 100% of the time because some time will go into eating, bathing, sleeping.
It is up to each individual to draw out one's own plan as to what extent one wants to balance the time for being spiritual or worldly. There are no rules for this. It is not necessary that one should go to places of worship compulsorily. If a person wants to get closer to God faster, then the person will make their own plans to do this according to their desire.