Trading Spirit for Silicon: The Cost of a Digital World
The rise of technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), pulls us into a manufactured, digital world, often at the cost of our inner lives. As screens and algorithms consume our time, we risk losing touch with intuition, self-awareness, deep peace, and the divine spark within us—known across cultures as our profound connection to the Creator, God, Higher Self, or other names.
Mystics and sages, from ancient India to Christian contemplatives, have long taught that this inner connection is our truest essence. As Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic, said, “To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God.” Similarly, the Upanishads describe the Self as pure consciousness, all-knowing, and within everyone.
If we fully immerse ourselves in technology, we might lose contact with this essential Self, handing over not just tasks but also our judgment and spiritual depth to machines. AI’s benefits and risks will become clearer over time, but its long-term impact—50 or 100 years from now—is uncertain. It could bring immense wealth through super-intelligent robotics and automation. Yet, it might also deepen inner emptiness.
This danger isn’t new. It builds on a trend that began around 2010, when smartphones and high-speed internet sparked a “Great Rewiring.” Children swapped playtime for screen time, and we embraced social media’s promise of connection. But features like “like buttons” and endless newsfeeds, driven by algorithms from top engineers, fueled a race for profit by capturing attention. The more we engaged, the more ad revenue companies earned. This shift pulled time and focus from reflection, creativity, and genuine relationships, trading them for quick digital dopamine hits—a new kind of addiction. Studies show that digital overload reduces opportunities for introspection, which is linked to lower well-being and increased emotional reactivity, while reducing screen time boosts happiness. (Source: Psychological Bulletin, “Electronic Screen Use and Children’s Socioemotional Problems: A Scoping Review and Meta-Analysis”) The increase in screentime has led to a surge in anxiety and depression in youth, as detailed by Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation (2024).
We feel encouraged to focus on AI’s productivity gains. AI offers practical benefits: robots handle repetitive or hazardous tasks, Neuralink helps brain-injured individuals regain speech or mobility (a remarkable use of this technology!), and future brain implants provide instant access to vast knowledge. Imagine replacing your smartphone with a brain-computer interface. Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, the technology is already here.
However, there is a trade-off for both adults and youth. Driven by an irresistible profit motive, AI companies create addictive habits to keep users hooked and monetize data, turning tools into traps that not only drain time but also core human skills, such as writing, problem-solving, the basics of human communication, and ethical judgment. Research warns of this loss. Relying on AI weakens our intuition, floods our senses with digital noise, and drowns out the inner signals tied to emotion and. felt connection to Spirit. Students using generative AI already show declining skills, highlighting how this can leave us not just distracted and/or isolated, but disconnected from our full human potential. (Source: Smart Learning Environments, “The effects of over-reliance on AI dialogue systems on students’ cognitive abilities: a systematic review”)
What Does This Mean for Our Deepest Fulfillment?
Can AI’s advances, which ease physical burdens and expand abilities and knowledge, bring the lasting peace and prosperity we seek? While AI offers incredible possibilities, ancient wisdom and modern science agree that true joy comes from reconnecting with our inner divine source, rather than chasing fleeting external pleasures. Positive psychology’s hierarchy of needs shows that tech’s short-term gains can’t replace the deeper growth of meaning and connection to a higher purpose beyond material wealth.
To find true joy, we must nurture our “sixth sense” that sages say awakens through consistent meditation practice. This minimizes ego control and maximizes presence, love, and compassion —the attributes of the divine within each person. AI might offer tools like meditation apps, which studies show can slightly reduce anxiety; however, only an unmediated, direct connection to the higher Self can manifest the positive potential within us and our deepest inner knowing. Brain implants and AI-generated, manufactured realities accessible within a computer chip may lead us to a false reality. They may simply be a poor replica of the real, higher Self experience.
Balancing spirituality with daily life—such as caring for children, eating well, and managing finances—requires inner work. We look to Self-realized figures who lived with love and purpose amid worldly tasks, supported by communities and guides. An example is Sister Ranjana of the Self-Realization Fellowship, who emphasizes the harmony between spiritual and material lives.
Shortcuts like AI brain stimulation or psychedelics may offer glimpses of the divine, but research shows meditation builds lasting connection to the Self, fostering compassion and wisdom that fleeting highs can’t match. True joy and wise choices come from integrating divine intuition with everyday life, lest we trade our inner divinity for silicon gods.
IMHU’s Perspective
Integrative Mental Health University, IMHU, believes that the flexibility to transcend the ego and reconnect more fully with our divine source is everyone’s birthright, a seed in every soul, possibly more vital now as technology pulls us outward. We recognize the universal need to connect with our divine source across cultures. Although religious institutions were once the central place to address this need, we now see other, more universally welcoming options, such as Brazil’s Spiritist Centers, global spiritual hubs, fellowships dedicated to evolution, and healers who promote spiritual wellness.
Mental healthcare must evolve to recognize the need for a deep spiritual connection as a path to human flourishing. Research supports this view. IMHU teaches providers to recognize and respect the unusual phenomena related to connecting to the Higher Self. Brazilian Spiritist psychiatric hospitals and community centers model and validate the effectiveness of this path. IMHU’s international Spiritual Emergence Coach® Directory is comprised of providers who offer coaching and resources for individuals nurturing their connection to their inner divine Self and seeking to lead a balanced life.
In summary, IMHU acknowledges AI’s life-enhancing potential but recognizes its limitations in fostering lasting joy or intelligence rooted in compassion. We champion “sacred technologies”—practices that spark lasting transformation over temporary digital highs—to ensure technology serves, not severs, our potential to flourish both inwardly and in our physical lives.
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Authors
Andy Johns is the Vice President of IMHU. He spent 17+ years working in Silicon Valley helping grow start-ups. After his own intense spiritual emergence process, he has shifted his attention to helping others in spiritual emergence.
Emma Bragdon, PhD, is the founder and Executive Director of IMHU. She has been deeply involved with writing and teaching about spiritual emergence and emergency since 1980.