Austerity as an extreme (machine translation)
Asceticism is an important element of many spiritual traditions. Important – because from the point of view of adherents of these traditions, it serves as an indicator of the degree of spiritual progress. It can take many forms, but ultimately it comes down to this one way or another.
Asceticism is usually called the ability to abandon worldly goods. That is, from what prevents you from completely immersing yourself in the spiritual sphere of life. In this case, the definition of “worldly goods” is very elongated. For some, this is a rejection of excesses, often turning into vices – for example, luxury, gluttony, fornication, etc. Such self-restraint, however, can hardly be called asceticism; but for people who are accustomed to accepting excesses as the norm, it looks that way. For those who perceive the concept of norms more adequately, asceticism boils down to the rejection of the part – sometimes significant – of what is needed and the reduction of their needs for clothing, food, amenities, etc. to a minimum. This also cannot be unambiguously defined as asceticism. Rather, this is modesty. Sometimes excessive, but still. Moreover, the boundaries of the necessary, in fact, are quite vague. What one needs or is very desirable, the other can easily do without it. Thus, for one – self-restraint, requiring purposeful volitional action, for the other – the norm, and he does not even feel that he is deprived of something. And only more severe forms of self-restraint, when a person voluntarily exposes himself to severe hardships and refuses even what is normal and necessary, is usually regarded as a clear and unquestioning asceticism.
It is this form of it, as is commonly believed, that serves as a clear indicator of the level of a person’s spirituality. Such an approach is based on the opposition of the spiritual and the secular. Deepening in spirituality, in its traditionally religious sense, does not really combine too much with bodily-material interests, even if they do not mean anything other than trivial life. Firstly, these interests draw time, attention and energy onto themselves, and shift a sense of responsibility onto themselves. Secondly, their provision often requires the adoption of not the most ethical decisions and the commission of the most moral acts, ranging from petty egoism to great cruelty; it develops greed, envy, and aggressiveness. Thirdly, the habit of material wealth relaxes a person, makes him incapable of overcoming problems and hardships, namely, spiritual doing is usually accompanied by problems and hardships. Simply put, focusing on the material side of life – which in this context also includes social relations and the family – distracts a person from spiritual tasks, leads him away from morality, makes him weak and serves as fertile ground for the growth of vices in him. In a word, makes it worse. All this is quite obvious, and therefore in those religions where the spiritual side of life is sharply opposed to the material, asceticism has become a means of allowing one to distance oneself from the material and focus on the spiritual.
In addition, it also serves as a kind of training that develops many positive qualities: the same modesty, unpretentiousness, the ability to endure hardships, patience, willpower, endurance, the ability to remain calm, etc. These are truly valuable qualities that are always necessary, regardless of any religious tradition.
But it is also true that asceticism, reaching its extreme forms, easily passes into self-torture. In what is aptly called mortification of the flesh. This can result in real mockery of oneself, in some cases reaching outright sadism. Offhand I will list only some of their varieties. They starve themselves, sometimes bringing them to the state of a living skeleton, from weakness, unable to rise to their feet. They scourge and beat themselves, sometimes combining it with shredding of skin and meat. They burden themselves with weights that impede movement and deform the body. They burn their flesh, pierce it, pinch it with ropes, chains, wire, crashing into it and sometimes leading to the death of tissues. They deprive themselves of organs, from the eyes to the genitals, which supposedly interfere with complete immersion in spiritual work. This is not a complete list of “finds” in this area. Truly, an enthusiastic person does not know restraint and measures in nothing. Even in the abuse of himself.
Various forms of asceticism – from simply avoiding life in society to monstrous self-torture – mean the same goals: removal from the material and focus on the spiritual, the development of special qualities (often combined with punishing oneself for sins, real or imaginary), gaining the goodwill of the highest strength and effort to be worthy of posthumous benefits. This is if you summarize and briefly summarize all of the above, without going into the nuances of some particular cases.
UEH has a different point of view on all this. And the point here is not even that it is not a religion, because in it the spiritual side of life is given great importance. The point here is that the desire for spirituality should not degenerate into something ugly and creepy, and the spiritual side of life can actually be combined with the material.
In fact, one should not interfere with the other. But why is it always bothering? Why are they so hard to combine? As a rule, because such an opportunity is not implied. Spiritual and material are usually regarded as phenomena of a fundamentally different order, as two different worlds, hardly able to coexist. If we imagine human life in the form of a puzzle to be assembled, it turns out that fragments of not one puzzle, but two are mixed there. A separate picture is assembled from each – but it is impossible to assemble one, single picture from them. But is this really so? So, in the event that fragments are originally taken from two different paintings. And not so, if initially this picture is one, but it includes everything. What puzzle you make, you will assemble one. And who sets the picture, which has become a puzzle? This is where the catch lies. If the picture corresponds to reality, then it will form correctly. The author of this picture can only be Nature. When a person arrogates to himself the right to create reality, and to create, focusing solely on his own particular taste and whim, then the picture will be inaccurate, based on errors, and the puzzle will not work out, or it will completely fall apart into several incompatible pictures.
Man is arranged in such a way that in his nature there is a place for both material and spiritual. In fact, they do not oppose, but organically complement each other. In order for this to turn out, you need to see their common basis. This common basis is the destiny of man, his place in Nature. It includes both the spiritual and material aspects. The first, among other things, is a conductor of the principles on which the second should be based. Constructed consciously, purposefully and diligently. Then the material side of life will not be an obstacle to the spiritual side, but help. Instead of a destructive conflict, we will see a creative and life-affirming symbiosis. Unless, of course, we can call a mutually necessary coexistence of two sides of the same coin a symbiosis.
If the spiritual side of life is correctly understood and organized correctly, then the material side will also be correctly organized. She will not be perceived as something hostile, as a hindrance, and she will not have to flee. Yes, and if you think about – what is the escape from? What do ascetics refuse? Is it okay to refuse it? People have been given the ability to love, given great happiness and, at the same time, a great responsibility to continue the human race in children – is it so spiritual to abandon the family? We have been given the ability to compassion, to help other people, to create, to change the world for the better – is it so spiritual to flee society and isolate ourselves from the world? We have been given the senses, intelligence and emotions – is it so spiritual to suppress them, blind and throw them away like unnecessary stuff? We have been given a beautiful, dexterous and strong body – is it so spiritual in vain to exhaust, torment and maim it? Can all this, with common sense, really seem spiritual and correct? Unlikely. Something is clearly wrong here. And it’s not so difficult to guess what exactly. The trouble is that many simply do not understand how to properly use all those wonderful gifts, abilities and opportunities that I spoke about above. Fatal errors have crept into their picture of the world – and that which is good, useful and necessary is perceived as something harmful, interfering with the right life and requiring that we get rid of it.
According to the Teaching, asceticism as a spiritual practice does not justify itself. Moreover: most often it turns out to be an obstacle on the spiritual path, because it does not help to go along it, but interferes, forcing to lose a sense of proportion and go to extremes. The extremes are just as harmful as the extremes of excessive immersion in the material. The material should not degenerate into selfishness, greed and voluptuousness, the spiritual should not degenerate into neglect of the great gifts of Nature. What pleases certain higher forces, it is also a mistake. In fact, no one needs human self-torture. Unless to other people.
Sometimes you have to limit yourself to something necessary. In some cases, simply because you cannot get what you need, or you can’t get it in an honest way; in other cases, because circumstances require something to be sacrificed. But this is not at all the same as asceticism. Sometimes you can limit yourself to something necessary, with the goal of learning to depend less on living conditions and your needs and instilling in yourself the qualities mentioned above – modesty, unpretentiousness, the ability to endure hardships, patience, willpower, endurance, etc. From this point of view, reasonable self-restraint is really useful, especially given that a person’s limitation of his material needs will allow him to exploit the nature of our planet less and reduce greed, envy and enmity in society. But it is rational self-restraint, not asceticism. Extreme should not be treated with extreme. There is no point in knocking out a wedge with a wedge, since both wedges are bad, and this will lead to nothing but new problems. Everything is good in moderation. In this case, the measure lies in the middle between unbridledness and asceticism. At the point of confluence of the spiritual and the material, where their common basis becomes clear, where their single source becomes visible. From the point of view of the Teaching, this point is visible very clearly.
© Atarkhat, 2017