That's a good observation about the "woke" meme. My understanding of the original post in this thread is that "spiritual materialism" describes more or less intentional uses of spirituality for egotistic reasons.Posted by Merry Mom (here)
Now you know! I was the same way, until I heard many millennials use it in the context of criticizing people who don't agree with them about gender or race. Here's one definition from Urban Dictionary: "WokePosted by The Freedom Train (here)
Blimey I didn't know that - I thought "woke" was used by millennials to describe what they perceived to be attainment of a certain level of spiritual awareness.Posted by Merry Mom (here)
When I first heard this phrase, I thought it meant something like how aware are you of the extremely high level of deception that is currently foisted upon citizens by the government-media-industrial complex? When I found out that most people seem to think that the "woke" question equates to "How narrowly do you follow the path of political correctness that encourages humans to be defined by their superficial physical traits?", I was quite surprised!Posted by The Freedom Train (here)
"How woke are you?" is a current trend.
A state of perceived intellectual superiority one gains by reading The Huffington Post.
Ali is so woke. At brunch she explained how wearing anything other than Chuck Taylor's or Tom's is really a microaggression. Hey did you get your Amy Schumer tickets yet?"
It's my opinion that the "woke" meme and similar movements represent a stagnant level of spirituality. People believing they're so right and informed that anyone criticizing them must be wrong.
The more interesting thing is that "woke" is slang for "awake", which is a word with deep potential meaning.
Just some years ago in 2012 the word "awaken" was a big thing and the deeper meanings that can be associated with it were more so reaching the masses. The problem is that for a deeper, spiritual, meaning to reach the masses it has to go through many layers. It gets diluted along the way.
So it becomes less about inner work and finding the meaning of these words like "awaken" for ourselves, changing ourselves in the process. It becomes more about finding a coveted word or label. Being part of the right "side" or movement.
That's always been a problem with spiritual messages and teachings brought into the collective. Even the deepest messages become slogans and bumper stickers. You might say the words and messages are meaningless in of themselves, they are transient carriers or lines of connection that hopefully get us in touch with a deeper source/meaning.
There are those who believe simply knowing a phrase and associating with the right group/label makes them "awake" or evolved. Anyone who's done their self work knows that to simply use a label is not the same as exploring what such a word like "awake" means to them as a sovereign being.
There's a lot to be said about the dangers of obvious false spirituality, the wealthy TV preachers and new age gurus bilking the masses are examples of that. There's also an element of stagnant spirituality we have to watch out for. The hubris of our own minds to assume we're "there" and not having done the difficult work to transform ourselves. One can be asleep while believing they're awake, ironically using their material ego to think that they're awake.
The danger in the modern world is not that there are people who believe they're awake. It's easy to think that one is awake, or evolved, or special. There's always been people who exemplify that trap and it's a test to not to become lulled. To be "spiritually" awake so the matrix can't reduce you to a label. We see this in the "alt media" which has more and more been associated with the "alt right"-something easy to itemize and dismiss by anyone looking to disregard ANY alternative media. Again, just back in 2012 the "alt media" was less political and more about the bigger picture.
So the danger is that it's so easy these days to believe that one is "woke" or so special they've attained a coveted status. Which puts the mind to sleep, because if we believe we're already "there" there's no reason for doing the difficult work.
The facsimile of truth, of spirituality, has gotten so refined that it's more difficult to avoid its trap. There's no automatic "red pill" (another hashtag) that we can take to avoid that. It requires self work, there has to be a desire to awaken not presume it.
If there's any solution to the facsimile it might be to withdraw from it as best we can and constantly push ourselves in our self work.