The Real Reason We Seek Enlightenment
Spinoza, Martin Butler, and the Hidden Logic of Spiritual Quests
“Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being.”
— Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 6
What Are We Really Seeking?
Why do people embark on spiritual quests? Is it to find truth, to discover God, or to reach enlightenment? Or is it something far more mundane: a veiled pursuit of pleasure, a desperate attempt to manage the pain of existence? From the perspective of Martin Butler’s realism and Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics, the spiritual quest is best understood not as transcendence but as a disguised strategy of emotional regulation.
It is easy to romanticize the spiritual path. The language surrounding it—awakening, transcendence, liberation—suggests some higher calling. But what if it is simply the same drive that motivates the businessman, the addict, or the fame-seeker? According to Martin Butler and Spinoza, this is not only possible but likely.
Desire - the Engine of Existence
Martin Butler, echoing Buddhist insight, claims:
“All your suffering is created by your desire to exist.”
This isn’t poetic metaphor—it’s philosophical realism. Life's pain arises from the constant desire to affirm one's being, to gain stability in an inherently unstable world. As Martin puts it, pleasure is what we feel when our sense of existence is reassured—through love, money, health, or social approval. Pain comes when that sense is diminished.
In Spinoza terms, this desire is known as the conatus—the inherent striving of every being to persist in its existence.
“Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being.”
(Ethics III, Prop. 6)
When this striving is thwarted—through illness, loss, or inner unrest—we turn to spiritual frameworks to soothe our destabilized existence.
This striving is the source of both joy and sorrow, of religion and science, of devotion and delusion. Spiritual quests, when stripped of mythology, are expressions of conatus. We seek spiritual experiences to enhance our existence, to feel more secure, more connected, more alive.
This audio covers the first part of this article.
Emotions Are Signals, Not Sacred
Spinoza defines emotions (affects) as fluctuations in our power of acting:
“Joy is a man’s passage from a lesser to a greater perfection.”
“Sadness is a man’s passage from a greater to a lesser perfection.”
(Ethics III, Defs. 2–3)
Spiritual highs—meditation, revelation, mystical euphoria—are not cosmic confirmations. They are temporary upticks in our affective state.
What we call "spiritual growth" is often a fluctuation in these powers. The ecstatic high of a meditation retreat, the serenity following a ritual, the temporary hope in a new belief—these are affective spikes, not ontological revelations. They are felt as meaningful because they temporarily increase our capacity to act.
Martin Butler compares this to addiction: heroin, alcohol, and spirituality can all serve the same function—temporary relief from the pain of being.
Martin calls this out as emotional pleasure-seeking. From the opiated calm of mindfulness apps to the euphoric promise of union with the divine, these quests mirror the same dynamics found in substance use. Heroin users and spiritual seekers alike are attempting to soothe inner pain. The delivery method differs. The psychological function is the same.
Superstition and the Marketplace of Hope
Spinoza writes:
“If men could manage all their affairs by a definite plan, or if they always enjoyed good fortune, they would never be held in the grip of superstition.”
(Theological-Political Treatise, Preface)
Here, Spinoza explains why spirituality sells: it capitalizes on fear and instability.
We don’t turn to spiritual beliefs when things are going well. We turn to them when we are desperate, when rational explanations fail to console us. This is where fantasy begins to substitute for knowledge. And this, Martin argues, is when the spiritual industry moves in.
Martin Butler’s critique is sharp: spiritual movements often resemble marketing campaigns wrapped in robes and incense. From The Secret to high-end mindfulness retreats, the product is the same: emotional comfort.
He critiques the layers of obfuscation used by spiritual practitioners—mystical language, secret teachings, and the pretense of inner knowing. These are tools of persuasion, not liberation. They build brands and monetize belief from the vulnerable and unaware. As he dryly notes, one might as well call it Spiritual Pleasures Corporation.
For Spinoza this means:
“We see that it is especially those who covet fortune's favors who are most prone to superstition.” (Theological-Political Treatise, Preface)
Or, in plain English, “Those who greedily covet fortune’s favors are the readiest victims of superstition.”
In other words, belief systems flourish not where truth is abundant, but where fear is.
This is not limited to televangelists or "law of attraction" influencers. Even serious spiritual traditions offer subtle promises of enhanced being. The seeker is drawn not toward reality but toward imagined states of permanent satisfaction.
The Illusion of the Heart
Many claim, “the truth is found through the heart.” But what is “the heart,” in philosophical terms?
“The mind does not know itself except insofar as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body.”
(Ethics II, Prop. 23)
According to Spinoza, what we call “heart” is simply a fluctuation in affect—a response to bodily and emotional states. Following it leads to emotional vacillation, not reliable knowledge.
As Martin Butler says:
“If the truth could be found in the heart, why does it keep changing its mind?”
One seductive modern trope is that truth lies “through the heart.” Butler criticizes this as vague emotionalism. What does it even mean? If Spinoza is correct, and all emotions are modifications of the body correlated with changes in power, then "truth through the heart" simply means "truth through feeling."
To rely on feeling as a guide to truth is to surrender to mood swings. The seeker begins by feeling hopeful, finds momentary uplift, then crashes into disappointment. The path becomes a loop: pleasure, expectation, collapse, disappointment and pain, then a renewed search.
We are not disembodied souls navigating cosmic truths. We are finite expressions of nature, caught in fluctuations of affect. To find truth, we must seek clarity, not comfort.
Rational Joy and the End of the Fantasy
For Spinoza, real joy is the result of understanding, not escapism:
“The more the mind understands, the greater is its power over the affects and the less it suffers from them.”
(Ethics V, Prop. 4)
The liberated person does not need mystical experience. They need clarity. Not mystical euphoria, but deep, fearless comprehension of reality.
“Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.”
(Ethics V, Prop. 42)
True joy, for Spinoza, comes from reason—from the adequate understanding of causes. The more we understand, the less we are at the mercy of circumstance.
This is freedom: not freedom from pain, but freedom from delusion. The rational person does not seek mystical experiences to feel good. They seek to understand the world—and in that understanding, they find peace.
In Martin Butler’s terms, this is simply being honest. Stop pretending the spiritual path is holy. Admit that it’s a pleasure-seeking method, and then decide whether that method is necessary, helpful, or even worth it.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel better. But the moment we dress up that desire with transcendental language, we enter the domain of self-deception. And there is no enlightenment in deception.
From Self-Deception to Self-Honesty
Both Spinoza and Martin Butler call out the same dynamic: the spiritual quest, while understandable, is often based on a lie.
We aren’t seeking God.
We’re seeking relief.
And that’s okay—so long as we admit it.
The moment we dress up our pleasure-seeking with transcendental language, we enter the realm of self-deception. There is no enlightenment in delusion.
If the spiritual quest is, as Martin says, just pleasure-seeking in disguise, then perhaps it is time to remove the disguise. Spinoza offers no heaven, no divine judgment, no soul in the Christian sense. But what he does offer is a kind of peace: not the peace of angels, but the peace of understanding.
This peace is not emotional tranquility. It is the cessation of internal war—the war between fantasy and reality, between the self we wish to be and the one we actually are.
Martin puts it bluntly: "Let's be honest about it." People do not launch spiritual quests when they are satisfied. It is dissatisfaction—emotional, existential, or psychological—that drives the search. And that search is not bad. It is simply human.
Spinoza, too, treats human longing with compassion. But he insists that true liberation does not come through imagination or faith. It comes through clarity. When we understand the nature of our emotions, their causes, and their limits, we are no longer enslaved by them.
A Better Kind of Freedom
Spinoza doesn’t offer salvation. He offers freedom through understanding:
“He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and so much the more as he understands himself and his emotions more.”
(Ethics V, Prop. 15, Scholium)
Real freedom begins when we stop seeking fantasy and start facing necessity. This is not the path of angels, but the path of reason.
I reiterate Martin Butler’s words:
“Let’s just be honest about it.”
Let’s cut through spiritual romanticism. Drop the masks—not to shame ourselves, but to see ourselves more clearly. The spiritual quest, in this light, is not a path upward but a loop inward: from pain, through fantasy, back to pain.
But once that loop is seen clearly, it can be exited. And that clarity, perhaps, is the only real enlightenment there is.
"He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and so much the more as he understands himself and his emotions more."
(Ethics V, Prop. 15, Scholium)
The rational person sees the spiritual quest for what it is: a symptom of deeper striving. And in doing so, they become free.
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