Man can be seen to be a product of two heritages – his spiritual heritage born of consciousness and his material heritage born of biological roots.
The central question is “how do these two heritages – spiritual and material – interact”?
When these two heritages interact fruitfully and harmoniously, then the output is a deeply fulfilled existence.
When the spiritual and material dimensions of man are in conflict, then the output is anxiety and alienation from self and society.
So, how to achieve a positive and fruitful interaction and synthesis between the spiritual and material dimensions in a human being?
The answer seems to be acceptance of the journey of renunciation of the ‘narrow I’ and the gradual adoption of a larger ‘collective I’.
In such a synthesis, renunciation is viewed as a joyous, positive process of expansion of self from a finite biological individual (individual ‘I’) to a larger collective-centered individual (collective ‘I’), and further to an infinite spiritual identity.
