new age religions materialism and idealism in life

Materialism and Idealism in life, the ideas of Eastern mysticism, and the concept of idealism. The history of Western systematic philosophy from Plato to the late nineteenth century may be seen as one long argument between the idealists and the materialists, an argument about metaphysics.

Metaphysics asks questions about the relationship between the physical world and the spiritual world, between phenomena and numena, between the body and the mind. The idealists claim that reality is mind. They claim that the phenomenal world is a manifestation of ideas and that these ideas exist on a transcendent level, above and of a higher status than the physical.

Whether this numenal world exists within the mind of God, within Plato's world of ideas, or within the Christian heaven is unimportant for an understanding of metaphysics. Essentially, metaphysics postulates a dual view of the universe. The materialists also postulate dualism because, although they deny the existence of a world of spirit, they take part in metaphysical discourse, claiming that there is a subject to argue about.

To make a superficial but useful analogy from contemporary technology, it's like arguments one hears today about whether software is more important than hardware. Is it the physical components of a computer that is essentially the machine or is it the code that makes it possible to operate a computer that is essentially the machine. It's a silly argument; a computer is both software and hardware (some folks add a third component, wetware - a living operator, us.) The materialists claim that we can easily conceive of a body without a mind - rocks, air, stars - but that it's absurd to assume the existence of minds without bodies - ghosts, spirits, gods.

Whereas the idealists reject material as essential because of the definition of the word "essential." Things have essences or else the word would be meaningless. Things are not just what they appear to be, but have some basic essence that can't be experienced physically.

Idealists often use arguments based on definition to defend their positions. For example, the Christian philosopher Anselm used definition to prove the existence of God in his "Ontological Proof of the Existence of God." Anselm asks his readers to imagine a most perfect being in their minds and then to postulate a most perfect being in the real world. He then asks the readers to compare the two.

How are they different? Of course the only difference is that the being we imagine doesn't exist and the being in the real world does. He then asks us to decide which being is greater. Of course, the real being is greater. Anselm then writes, that because, by definition, God is the greatest being and since the existent being is greater than the non-existent being, then we must accept the theist position, God exists.

Hinduism rejects metaphysics. There is no dualism. Both a world of spirit and a world of material are equally nonexistent. The position of the Bhagavad Gita is that metaphysics is a silly argument, both the mind and the body are illusions. The Hindu would say that when the materialist claims that we can easily imagine bodies without minds he or she is as deluded as imagining a computer without software and that the idealists are as deluded as those who claim that a computer can exist entirely made of software.

All things seem to exist in either physical or mental manifestations but they don't. All things are essentially Brahman, and Brahman is neither spirit nor flesh.