Consumption and Consumerism Point to the Real

How Consumption and Consumerism reveal a profound truth about the soul

Consumption and consumerism are so familiar in our daily routines that we rarely stop to question them. We consume food for sustenance and pleasure, purchase material goods to fill needs and desires, and engage with experiences in pursuit of satisfaction. It feels natural to consume—to live is to consume. But what if consumption isn’t merely about survival or satisfaction? What if it points to something deeper, more profound?

The Latin word consume comes from consumere, which means “to use up, eat, or devour,” and has its roots in con- (together) and sumere (to take).  The Hebrew word tamam (תָּם or תָּמַם) means “to be complete, finished, or consumed.” It can convey the idea of something reaching its complete end or conclusion, often used in contexts where something is brought to completion or fully used up.

Both tamam in Hebrew and consume in Latin share a conceptual overlap regarding the idea of something being fully used up or coming to an end.

We might begin by asking: Why do we consume? Is it merely for momentary enjoyment, or is there something we are ultimately seeking through the act of consuming? If so, why does satisfaction slip away so quickly, leaving us craving more? Is it possible that our cycles of consumption, often unconscious, reveal a longing deep in the soul—a longing for the Real?

Biological Needs and Psychological Craving

Biological needs—eating, drinking, and shelter—form the foundation of our consumption. Without these, we cannot survive. But consumption, in its modern form, has evolved beyond the biological. It has intertwined with psychological cravings. We don’t just consume to survive; we consume to satisfy psychological needs, often driven by feelings of lack, anxiety, or the desire for comfort. In psychology, this can be understood through the hedonic treadmill, where no matter how much we consume, we always return to a baseline of dissatisfaction, craving more to sustain pleasure or comfort.

This endless seeking is mirrored in modern phenomena like FOMO (fear of missing out), where we fear that if we do not partake in the latest experience or acquire the newest product, we will remain unfulfilled. Our biological need for survival becomes entangled with psychological and emotional desires, leading us to a state of perpetual craving.

Yet, no matter how much we acquire, satisfaction eludes us. We eat but feel hungry again. We buy, yet soon desire something else. The question then arises: What are we truly hungry for?

Craving: Buddhist and Hindu Perspectives

In Buddhist teachings, craving, or tanha, is seen as one of the core causes of human suffering. According to Buddhism, the endless desire for sensory pleasures and material goods traps us in samsara, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. This craving stems from a fundamental misunderstanding: the belief that something outside ourselves can bring lasting fulfillment. But all things are impermanent, and attachment to them only leads to suffering.

There is a similar teaching in Hinduism, where Trishna—“thirst”—describes an insatiable desire for sensory pleasures, material wealth, and experiences. In Hindu philosophy, such craving binds us to the illusion of the material world (Maya), preventing us from realizing moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The soul is caught in this web of desires, mistaking fleeting satisfaction for lasting fulfillment.

Both perspectives remind us that consumption and consumerism can never be satisfied when rooted in craving. This endless thirst mirrors the cycle of modern consumerism—constantly seeking yet never finding completion.

The Hungry Ghost

Buddhism uses the hungry ghost metaphor (preta in Sanskrit) to symbolize this insatiable craving. Hungry ghosts are depicted as beings with enormous bellies but tiny throats, forever hungry and thirsty yet unable to consume enough to be satisfied. This image resonates with our modern relationship to consumerism—no matter how much we consume, we are never truly full.

The hungry ghost represents physical hunger and spiritual emptiness—a longing for fulfillment that material goods can never provide. This spiritual hunger drives us to consume, but the satisfaction we seek is always just out of reach, leaving us hungry for more. Could this endless desire reflect something deeper, pointing to the soul’s ultimate longing?

The Empty Spaces Within Us

A.H. Almaas’s theory of holes offers a powerful lens to explore this dynamic further. The “holes” refer to experiences of loss or absence within the soul—gaps left when we lose contact with essential qualities like love, strength, joy, or peace. These holes often develop due to psychological wounding or unmet needs early in life. Instead of experiencing the fullness of our essential nature, we experience deficiency and seek external substitutes to fill these voids.

For example, if we feel disconnected from our essential sense of value, we may look to material possessions, success, or approval from others to try and fill that gap. However, no matter how much we acquire, these external sources can never fully satisfy what is fundamentally an inner absence. They only serve as temporary patches over the hole while the deeper hunger remains.

Almaas’ theory reveals that much of our consumer behavior—our endless craving for more—arises from these “holes.” Rather than seeking external fulfillment, the true path to wholeness involves recognizing and exploring our empty spaces and reconnecting with the lost essential qualities. Consumption, driven by this sense of lack, ultimately avoids the truth of our being.

Amplifying the Holes

Modern advertising preys on these psychological holes, amplifying our sense of deficiency to sell solutions. Advertisers have mastered identifying where we feel lacking—whether in love, self-worth, strength, or happiness—and offering products as substitutes for those missing essential qualities. Rather than addressing the inner source of our hunger, advertising offers external fixes, subtly or overtly promising that consuming the right product will fill the void.

For example, beauty and luxury industries target our sense of inadequacy, implying that we can become more lovable or desirable by purchasing certain products. Similarly, ads for cars or status symbols target our disconnection from essential strength or power, suggesting that owning the right vehicle will make us feel more respected or in control. This manipulation of psychological and spiritual cravings turns the consumer into a perpetual seeker, always chasing after the next product that promises to deliver what can only be found within.

This is how the consumption cycle continues, fed by the illusion that material goods can fulfill our inner hunger. But in reality, each purchase only deepens the hole, reinforcing the false belief that we are not enough as we are and that we need something external to complete us.

The Sacred as Commodity

In our quest for fulfillment, even the sacred has been commodified. Spiritual materialism, a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa, refers to how spiritual teachings, practices, and experiences have been turned into products for consumption. Yoga classes, meditation retreats, mindfulness apps, crystals, and other spiritual tools are often marketed as quick-fix solutions to our existential hunger. Instead of deep spiritual inquiry, many seekers are drawn into accumulating spiritual “products” or experiences that promise enlightenment or peace without the real work of transformation.

This phenomenon has created a booming spiritual marketplace where the sacred has been reduced to another form of consumerism. People seek spirituality the same way they consume material goods, hoping each new retreat, book, or practice will finally bring them the wholeness they crave.

But actual spiritual growth isn’t something that can be bought or packaged. It requires confronting the reality of our inner holes and our disconnection from essence. Spiritual materialism, like other forms of consumerism, keeps us trapped in the cycle of seeking without ever truly finding. The promise of spiritual fulfillment becomes another product to purchase, feeding the sense of lack it promises to heal.

Consumption as a Bridge to the Real

What if our acts of consumption, when examined deeply, actually point us toward a spiritual truth? On the surface, we consume to meet biological and psychological needs. Still, if we inquire more deeply, we may find that our hunger for material things reflects a deeper hunger for truth.

This inquiry leads us to a profound realization: the relative world of consumption is a bridge to the Real. Through our engagement with the physical world—our everyday acts of eating, buying, and seeking—we are confronted with the limitations of material satisfaction. This realization opens the door to the deeper spiritual drive within the soul, which is not for material things but for something eternal and unchanging.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism teach us to look beyond the material. The Buddha taught that the impermanence of all things reveals that nothing external can bring lasting fulfillment. In Hindu philosophy, moksha—liberation—comes from seeing beyond the illusion of material desires. Both traditions point to the same truth: satisfaction comes not from the outside but from within, from the soul’s realization of its true nature.

Enlightenment Drive The Soul’s Yearning for the Real

The Soul’s Yearning for the Real

A.H. Almaas also speaks of the enlightenment drive—an intrinsic, often unconscious force within the soul that compels it toward truth and realization. This drive is not a desire for spiritual experience or attainment but the soul’s natural inclination to know and be its true nature. It is a force as powerful and fundamental as the biological instincts that drive our physical survival.

The enlightenment drive is enlightenment expressing itself as a drive. It is true nature in its freedom expressing itself as the drive to make enlightenment manifest.
A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization

Whether we know it or not, this drive is always at play. It often manifests in distorted forms, as we mistake material or sensory satisfaction for what the soul seeks. Beneath these distortions, the soul is always searching for the truth, for a deeper connection to reality.

The endless craving that underpins consumerism can be understood as a reflection of this enlightenment drive. When we consume, we are not just seeking pleasure or satisfaction; we are, at a deeper level, attempting to fulfill the soul’s fundamental drive to know itself by becoming the truth. True fulfillment comes when the soul aligns with the Real through inquiry and realization. This is where consumption and consumerism, in their deepest sense, reveal their spiritual dimension.

Identity, Meaning, and the Ego Ideal

Identity, Meaning, and the Ego Ideal

Another powerful dimension of consumption is how it relates to identity and the search for meaning and purpose. A.H. Almaas’ concept of the ego ideal sheds light on this dynamic, showing how we construct and chase an idealized image of who we think we should be. The ego ideal is an internalized standard of perfection shaped by societal expectations, parental conditioning, and cultural norms. It’s the image of success, power, attractiveness, or spirituality that we believe will give our lives value and meaning.

The problem with the ego ideal is that it is always external and unattainable. It creates a constant sense of striving, pushing us to do more, achieve more, and consume more to become this idealized version of ourselves. For many, this leads to an identity shaped not by their inner truth but by external markers—status, wealth, beauty, or even spiritual achievements. The search for meaning and purpose becomes entangled with materialism and consumerism, where buying or achieving certain things seems like the path to becoming “enough.”

Advertising taps directly into this dynamic, offering products that promise to bring us closer to our ego ideal. Whether it’s the latest fashion trend that promises to make us more desirable, the luxury car that signifies power and success, or the spiritual retreat that promises enlightenment, consumerism feeds the false belief that external things can make us whole. Our sense of identity becomes tied to what we consume as we look to material goods and experiences to validate who we are.

But Almaas’ teaching points to a more profound truth: the more we chase the ego ideal, the more disconnected we become from our essence. The ego ideal is a fantasy, a personality construct that pulls us away from our present reality. True meaning and purpose are not found in fulfilling the ego ideal but fully aligning with our essential nature.

The Search for Wholeness and the True Self

The Search for Wholeness and the True Self

The drive to craft an identity through consumption is ultimately an attempt to find wholeness. However, this wholeness can never be achieved externally because it cannot be constructed from the outside. The ego’s sense of deficiency or incompleteness—reflected in the psychological “holes”—cannot be filled by material goods or by living up to an idealized self-image.

Authentic wholeness comes from returning to essence. It’s not about achieving more or becoming the perfect version of ourselves; it’s about realizing that we are already complete at the essential level. The search for identity, meaning, and purpose through consumption distorts the soul’s deeper drive for realization. The soul attempts to bridge the gap between who we think we are and the truth.

By consuming external goods, we try to patch the psychological holes within us. But the path to true wholeness involves acknowledging and exploring these holes, recognizing that they are created by our disconnection from essence. Once we reconnect with our essential nature—whether love, strength, joy, or peace—the need to consume externally falls away, and the search for identity is no longer necessary. We become who we truly are, not by chasing after the ego ideal but by aligning with the truth of our being.

Consumption and Consumerism as a Bridge to the Real

Consumption and Consumerism as a Bridge to the Real

In this sense, consumption, and consumerism become a bridge to the Real when deeply understood. Our endless craving for material goods, status, or identity markers reflects the soul’s yearning for truth. Examining how we consume can uncover the soul’s genuine desire to be whole and one with the Real.

With all its cravings and consumption, the relative world offers an opportunity for spiritual inquiry. When we stop to ask, “Why do I consume? What am I hungry for?” we open the door to a deeper understanding of ourselves. This inquiry into consumption leads us to the soul’s fundamental desire to know and become the truth. The outer world of consumption reflects the inner world of spiritual seeking; through this reflection, we can find the path to true fulfillment.

Soul Knows by Being

Soul Knows by Being

One of the greatest misconceptions about the soul is that it functions like the mind, with thoughts, judgments, and processes. But the soul does not operate in the realm of thought. It knows by being. In this sense, being and knowing are co-emergent realities. When the soul knows something, it doesn’t conceptualize it—it becomes it.

This brings us to a deeper understanding of consumption. To consume something entirely is to be consumed by it. When the soul knows the truth, it becomes the truth. At that moment, the soul is no longer separate from what it knows; the truth consumes it, and nothing is left but the truth.

This mirrors the more profound spiritual process underlying our acts of consumption. When we consume, we are not merely seeking satisfaction; we are, at a deeper level, seeking the truth. The endless craving for more reflects the soul’s drive to be consumed by the Real, by the ultimate truth.

Being Consumed by the Truth

The journey of consumption is not merely about material goods or fleeting pleasures. It reflects a more profound spiritual process—the soul’s desire to know and be the truth. When we ask why we consume, we ask, What is the soul seeking?

The answer is that the soul seeks to be consumed by the truth, by the Real. Our endless craving and consumption in the material world reflect the soul’s deeper drive for ultimate fulfillment. And when the soul knows the truth, it becomes the truth. The soul is consumed in that moment, and nothing is left but the Real.

By exploring consumption through biological, psychological, and spiritual lenses, we see that the relative world is a bridge to the Real. The act of consuming becomes an entry point into the soul’s mysterious journey—a journey toward being consumed by the truth itself.

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