This is what Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Teaches us about the Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Age.

Despite historically unprecedented levels of technological development and material luxury, modern society is in a state of mass mental health crises.

Depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicide rates soar while meaninglessness, fear, loneliness and division characterise the general malaise of our time.

Convenience, comfort, ease and material abundance has become the norm in the Western world, yet discontent and psychological suffering is still widespread.

Materially we are doing better than ever before, yet psychologically and spiritually we are struggling more than ever. Why is this?

What does this stark contrast between the material and immaterial conditions of our lives reveal to us about our needs as humans, and how we should be living our lives?

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the perfect scientific tool to help us to answer these questions.

What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Abraham Maslow was a renowned American psychologist who developed the famous hierarchy of needs back in 1943.

The hierarchy presents 5 different types of human needs, stemming from basic survival needs to more abstract spiritual needs.

This hierarchy represents a structural truth about human existence.

It demonstrates the order of our needs as humans and aims to answer the question “what are we really after?”

It is often used to present the idea that one cannot attend to a higher need unless the need directly below it is being met.

This is true, but in the modern Western world where virtually everyone’s physical needs are being met, it must be asked why most people do not make an effort to work their way up the hierarchy all the way to the apex need.

Why is this important?

Modern Western society – in its predominantly materialist outlook and belief systems – places so much emphasis on the material aspects of life that it neglects the spiritual.

Most people - due to their societal conditioning - have been wired to indulge in their lower (physical) needs without much consideration for their higher needs.

In illuminating a set of higher spiritual needs, Maslow’s hierarchy demonstrates that these are indeed “needs”, which must be honoured if one is to attain a sense of not only true fulfilment and meaning in life, but of general psychological wellbeing too.

Physical conditions - satiation, comfort, convenience, wealth, luxury, pleasure etc. - are simply not sufficient to meet all of our needs, yet modern society is practically defined by its pursuit of these things.

Our material advancements have made it so that these things are constantly at our fingertips.

Maslow noticed that corporations target the lower needs of humans. There are huge institutions set up for the specific purpose of exploiting our lower needs for profit, while there are virtually no commercial means of aiding people to self-actualise.

Even on the individual level, how many people do you know that concern themselves on a daily basis with the matters pertaining to the apex need of Self-Actualisation laid out on Maslow’s hierarchy?

How many people think to themselves, every day, “how can I develop and actualise my morality, creativity, self-expression, purpose, meaning and potential?”

After all, when people can so easily have these cheap appetites fulfilled, why would they bother entering into the realm of meaning and higher values – something which requires effort and often discomfort?

Why should they seek to heighten their morality, creativity, self-expression or sense of meaning and purpose when quick dopamine is available around every single corner?

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs makes the answer to these questions very simple: because the fulfilment of these things is a human need.

Many people believe – consciously or unconsciously – that indulging in material pleasures will bring them the life-satisfaction, wellbeing and fulfilment they are missing.

They are wrong.

Self-Actualisation Needs

All of this is to say, that if you do not succeed in developing and actualising your unique potential, creativity, self-expression, sense of meaning, values and morality, then you are actually not having your needs met as a human being.

The embodied realisation and expression of these things – self-actualisation – is not intended by nature as some rare achievement reserved for a few remarkable people. No, it is wired into the psyche of every single human being as something they are not only capable of, but meant to fulfil as a matter of spiritual necessity.

As a widely unmet human need, it is no wonder that so many people should be feeling as lost, hopeless and dejected as they are.

While the spiritual needs of a person may not be as crucial for their biological survival as their lower needs, they’re sure as hell crucial for their mental and spiritual health.

And society may not lead you to believe it, but you are just as much (actually a lot more) a spiritual being than you are a physical one.

So, perhaps this is what Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs tells us about what underlies the mass discontent and psychological/spiritual suffering of the modern age.

It reveals that a set of our needs are not being met as a hugely important aspect of our nature is being neglected – the spiritual.

Ignorance of Our Spiritual Nature

The word “spiritual” does not necessarily have to refer to anything otherworldly or mystical (though it could) – it can simply mean the immaterial aspects of our nature.

Just because such things as meaning, purpose, values, potential, authenticity etc. cannot be physically observed or measured, it does not mean that they are not real, or even important.

The fact that they cannot be physically seen – paired with our materially and externally oriented way of being as a society – means that they get forgotten about and ignored.

Just as there are physical symptoms which indicate when your physical needs are not being met (hunger, thirst, fatigue, disease etc), there are also psychological or spiritual symptoms to indicate that your spiritual needs are not being met.

That is the mental health crisis we are seeing.

Depression, anxiety, addiction etc – these are the psychological/spiritual equivalents to the aforementioned physical symptoms, which indicate that your higher needs are not being met.

We simply have not, as a society, cracked that these are spiritual issues with spiritual solutions.

Once again, our materialist thinking led us to believe these were materially-based problems, with materially-based solutions, i.e. (funnily enough, immensely profitable) medications.

Our Materialist Limitations

Erroneous beliefs around these matters arise because the materialist worldview proposes that we are just our bodies and brains – that we are ultimately just physical creatures.

It holds that our entire nature is material – and the nature of reality itself – and that the immaterial aspects (such as consciousness) are merely by-products of the physical processes in our bodies and brains.

Materialism, however, is a faith-based belief system. It is an assumption. An outdated one at that, as there is absolutely no evidence which confirms or even necessarily suggests its truth (aside from the fact that matter is all we can see with our eyes).

In fact, there is actually an immense body of evidence to suggest that there is far more to reality than just matter, but for fear of getting too tangential, that will remain a matter for another day.

All of this is to at least say that there must be more openness and open-mindedness when it comes to matters of spirituality.

The Solution – Realisation of our Spiritual Nature

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates that there is more we need out of life than money, pleasure, comfort, and even friends, family and love.

To fill the void, to repair the angst, to heal the pain, to cultivate meaning and purpose, to live well and to feel good, all needs must be met.

So, what can be done to work towards meeting all of our needs and to address the spiritual problems that exist on the level of the individual and society more broadly?

The first step is to recognise that we are not just material beings.

There is a material aspect to our being, but that is all it is – an aspect.

There is so much more to our being that we must recognise.

As humans we require meaning, self-discovery, authentic self-expression, connection, creativity, morality, meaningful values.

Without them we are neglecting an essential part of our nature and thus not meeting the totality of our needs.

What can be done?

Here are some things you can do to work toward meeting your highest needs:

1. Pursue your curiosities: Your interests and curiosities are not random. You do not choose them. They choose you. They effectively call to you. They call you to become more than you currently are. Their call is the call to adventure. The call to transformation. The call to becoming who you truly are. Answer the call. Pursue them relentlessly and give outward expression to the deep, personal, creative forces within you.

2. Journal: Explore your inner world with words. Unpack your thoughts and feelings. Put them out into the world. Give them written expression. The more you practice this, the more you learn about yourself.

3. Read: The world is full of amazing books in which amazing minds discuss amazing ideas. Expose yourself to these ideas. Allow yourself to learn. Philosophy, spirituality and psychology – these fields deal with the psyche and the soul. That is what you are. Read books from these fields to expand your understanding of yourself and your place in the world.

4. Establish a set of values and a sense of morality: Sit down. Think deeply about what is important to you. Ask yourself what is more important, money or human connection? Status or Truth? Short-term pleasure or freedom? Comfort or courage? Great men and women throughout the ages have identified values of spiritual substance which, if prioritised, will make your life more meaningful. Take the time to uncover what is most important to you, and then strive to embody them in your life.

5. Inner work: Adopt practices to develop your inner world. Reading and journaling are good for this too, but practices such as meditation, working to understand your dreams, therapy, etc – these things are there to help you understand yourself better, to learn and to grow. Use the tools at your disposal.

To overcome the spiritual and mental health crises we face as a species, we must collectively turn our attention inward – from the external to the internal.

Most of us are great at avoiding the inside, because a lot of what we find when we face it can be scary and uncomfortable, but Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates that we must do the inner work if we are ever to feel spiritually content and fulfilled.

Everyone has darkness within them which they avoid. So they focus their attention outward. But within the darkness, past what is scary and ugly about ourselves, lies a well of golden beauty. Until the inner work is done, what lies inside will continue to haunt us. Whereas by facing what lies inside, we can transmute the darkness into something beautiful.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” – Gospel of Thomas

So that’s it. Do the inner work. Face yourself and work to fulfil your higher needs. You are a spiritual being with spiritual needs just as you are a material being with material needs. Honour yourself, and do the work to become who you truly are.