"Materialism is perfectly good in its place. If there is matter, matter has to be absorbed in a total life view. It has not to be avoided; it has to be used as a steppingstone toward spirituality. There is no contradiction between materialism and spiritualism, although it has been told again and again for thousands of years. You have been conditioned so much – the conditioning has gone deep – that nobody ever thinks about it again. It is one of the greatest calamities that have happened to humanity.

"Matter is the outer side of spirit; spirit is the inner side of matter. They are not separate. The outside and the inside cannot be separate, they are inseparable, they are inevitably together. Hence, a right vision, a total vision of life will be a synthesis, a synchronicity between matter and consciousness.

"Materialism has its own beauty, its own significance, just as spiritualism has its own beauty. But don't make 'isms' out of them. Life is one – it is spiritual and material. In fact, to use the word and between spiritual and material is not right, but languages come from the past. Better will be to make one word out of the two: spirit-matter.

"They are existing together in perfect harmony. In you they are existing together – your body, your mind, your soul, they are all existing in deep 'at-onement,' attunement. There is a subtle rhythm. They are all part of one dance. The body is not against the soul – it is the temple of the soul.

"But people like Lama Trungpa go on condemning materialism. When they condemn, they create guilt in you; you start feeling that whatsoever you are doing is wrong. And the moment you feel that whatsoever you are doing is wrong, you are trapped, you are imprisoned in a dichotomy. If you follow the so-called gurus, lamas, et cetera, you will be constantly in trouble, in conflict, because you will be avoiding something which is unavoidable.

"If you follow the body you will feel guilty; if you don't follow the body you will feel unnatural. Something in you will remain missing if you don't follow the body. If you don't nourish the body, if you don't respect the body, if you don't love the body, then something in you will remain like a wound, rejected, condemned."