Spiritual materialism

Spiritual materialism is a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa in his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. The book is a compendium of his talks explaining Buddhism given while opening the Karma Dzong meditation center in Boulder, Colorado. He expands on the concept in later seminars that became books such as Work, Sex, Money. He uses the term to describe mistakes spiritual seekers commit which turn the pursuit of spirituality into an ego-building and confusion-creating endeavor, based on the idea that ego development is counter to spiritual progress.^[1]

Conventionally, it is used to describe capitalist and spiritual narcissism, commercial efforts such as "new age" bookstores and wealthy lecturers on spirituality; it might also mean the attempt to build up a list of credentials or accumulate teachings in order to present oneself as a more realized or holy person.^[2] Author Jorge Ferrer equates the terms "Spiritual materialism" and "Spiritual Narcissism",^[1] though others draw a distinction, that spiritual narcissism is believing that one deserves love and respect^[3] or is better than another^[4] because one has accumulated spiritual training instead of the belief that accumulating training will bring an end to suffering.