Far be it from me to suggest that Mr Holden should not be allowed to wallow in self-indulgence, Willem

>>...should we deny ourselves our exultations simply because we happened to benefit from benign material conditions?<<

I am sure he has earned it.

It just came as a bit of a surprise that he would believe this is a sublime lesson in life for his grandchildren. From my experience of the current crop of youngsters, they are infinitely more societally aware than their grandparents, and would look very strangely on someone who ignores the sheer good fortune that precedes those "exultations".

I was just trying to help Mr Holden avoid an unnecessary ideological rift with his grandkids, that's all. To quote the man himself:

"The key word is 'awareness'. From awareness evolves transcendence. Then your focus on your desires and your problems can be left behind."

I was simply ensuring that he was aware of the part that his personal, materialistic good fortune plays in the shaping of the advice he intends to pass on to his grandchildren. To decry materialism in favour of spirituality is to miss the point. They are not mutually exclusive, after all, so why exhort them to escape materialism in order to embrace spirituality?

Interesting that psychiatrists are now the authority on religious experience. Not sure they have any greater claim to know the difference than a priest.

Sar, the priest just regurgitates his lines, hopes like hell that no one will question their sensibility or their ridiculous contradictions and childish premises.

The psychiatrist however knows humans are deeply flawed and, deep within, sees him or her self as more flawed than most.

Pericles, one last comment. Even if our material good fortune enables Mr Holden's kind of 'spiritualism', and we acknowledge it, why can't we move on and aspire to a less materialistic condition that is in greater harmony with nature? I see no potential 'ideological rift' here. To me the article does not sound 'wallowing in self-indulgence', nor does it sound of entitlement, and nor does it sound denialist. In Mr Holden's words, we might search for 'a way to escape the path towards total materialism', 'total' being the operative word. To be fair to Mr Holden.

Indeed, the article is an impressive (and beautiful) expression of what nowadays is called “spiritual atheism” (my Google brought 5.5million references to the term, probably all relatively recent). Spiritual atheism is a new phenomenon that also religious people should not dismiss, although it somehow looks like a plastic replica of the original spirituality, or even mysticism, of the traditional religions, Eastern or Western.

And one last comment from me, Willem.

>>... why can't we move on and aspire to a less materialistic condition that is in greater harmony with nature?<<

We can. There is no reason why we cannot. In fact, we probably should, if we already have the materialistic past that enables us to do so. I am fairly certain that many people who are financially comfortably will be very happy to adopt Mr Holden's approach, and "sit on a rock to watch the movement of the leaves in the breeze".

My only observation was that in order to be post-materialistic, if I may so generalize it, one has to previously have been materialistic. Or to have somehow benefitted from someone else's materialism. To set the two in opposition to each other as Mr Holden has done is to tell only half the story - that spiritualism, in the context he provides, is actually a product of materialism. That's all. Which makes the advice-to-grandchildren part just a little hollow.