What is ascetic practice, really, and does the familiar formula of “giving something up for the sake of a wish” have anything to do with spiritual development? In this conversation with Olya, I explore the spiritual meaning of ascetic practice, self-restraint and discipline.
Why does giving something up not yet make a practice spiritual? Which matters more — the form of the exercise or the motive a person acts from? Does spiritual development need to be tied to suffering and to restricting the physical body? I also consider another view of ascetic practice: attention to your own speech, your thoughts and the way you treat people as an ongoing practice that does not end after 30 or 40 days.
Ascetic practice today
– I’d like to talk about ascetic practice and understand what it actually is. In the world it’s presented as a method, among other things for a person’s spiritual development. As a rule, it consists in giving something up for some purpose — giving it up for the benefit of your spiritual development. But to sustain this discipline of giving up, a person sets himself some treat he’ll get when the practice is over — some wish. Usually people make a wish or something like that. Is there an understanding that this is, after all, part of spiritual development? Or is it more marketing and social stuff that has nothing at all to do with spiritual development? After all, it came from somewhere originally, and perhaps it was once a pure tool for something, and now it has become distorted.
– All the terms and concepts people use today — ascetic practice in particular — if they come from various ancient descriptions, did not simply have a particular meaning that people may now have distorted. They were also made for a person with a particular structure as a spiritual being, with a particular type of soul, with particular energies. That is very important. Human beings are constantly developing, just as everything around them develops. And clearly, something that was useful, say, four thousand years ago may now be not merely neutral but even harmful.
And even if you don’t go back four thousand years but take fifteen hundred years ago — it was a different time, with people structured differently. That is very important. But today we will still examine the concept of ascetic practice without relying on the fact that everything that happened before was basically meant for other people — in order to form a picture for ourselves of what it is. Although I, of course, strongly recommend paying fundamental attention to this. It concerns a huge number of rituals, practices, various actions people perform, tasks, teachings.
Does this really apply to the current world, the current time and the current structure of the human spiritual being? And how important it is for a person to understand this.
When I say that the spiritual system is different now, that in no way means it is somehow better or worse now. Even when I say that everything develops, by the word “develops” I want to convey here the sense of “changes.” Although the human spiritual being has indeed been transformed many times, and this carries experience, among other things — both a positive and a negative imprint of everything that has happened. So we will not assume here that the current human spiritual system is better in any way. It is simply different.
Ascetic practice for truth or for a result
When I personally first encountered the concept of ascetic practice, I immediately heard, immediately understood that there is something where you need to take certain actions not for a social result and not for a result you simply want, but because it must be done for the sake of truth. I think that fundamentally, if you look at the spiritual world, an ascetic practice is some action you take: you give something up, for example, or you do something through some effort. Right now we’re talking about “giving up.” What does it mean to give something up for the sake of truth?
For the sake of truth means there is no personality of yours in it, no ego motives of yours, no personal goals of yours. And there is no bargain at all: “On the whole I’m doing it for truth, but actually I get something out of it.” There is only a true feeling, a true perception that this is right, that this is the only way to be and no other.
Ascetic practice as self-restraint
But again, let’s now take and read the simplest description of the term “ascetic practice.” First, it comes from the word “exercise”: a method of achieving spiritual goals through exercises in self-discipline, self-restraint, self-renunciation, through prayer, the fulfillment of difficult vows, sometimes including self-torment and mortification of the flesh. That is a big question, of course. I think that part was added in Wikipedia. Next: asceticism is a way of life characterized by extreme modesty and abstinence, self-restraint, above all in pleasures and luxury.
Naturally, ascetic practices occur in almost every world religion, but they will of course differ. Somewhere there will be self-torment, somewhere a relative self-torment, but at least the creation of problems for the physical body. But an important aspect worth noticing in the description is that it is a method of achieving spiritual goals through exercises. Then comes restriction. Asceticism is already a certain restriction, and people will attach a whole spectrum of things to it.
What does that mean? What is restriction? Not eating sugar once a week, or not eating it at all? Spending ten thousand dollars a month or a hundred dollars? Or eating minimally — and what is eating minimally? And then a whole spectrum of different details begins. Is it really necessary, in order to develop spiritually, to stop buying yourself high-quality food that costs a lot of money? Is it really necessary to do that? Is there really such a connection? Or does it mean buying from an appropriate impulse, understanding where dependencies are at work, where ego motives are at work, where a huge number of attachments are at work, where influence on other people is at work, and where you are buying sincerely, simply in order to eat?
So what is it? How do you catch it? Can it be described by some particular exercises? Or should it be something inside, some feeling? What kind of feeling should it be, how should it express itself, what should it carry within it? That is very important: what kind of feeling it should be, what kind of energy it should be.
So, when I first encountered asceticism, I understood that these were some actions for the sake of truth, but I couldn’t grasp what was meant. There was some impulse in me, but the exercises I did, I did for something — I simply did them for something.
And even now I have this: several times a week, for many years now, I don’t eat certain kinds of food, and basically that is an ascetic practice. It was a certain prescription, an exercise, and it has stayed with me. Probably one of the very few exercises that has stayed so steadily in my life. Why am I still in it? Am I in it out of a true perception — that it’s true at all — or is it simply a certain habit? Or did I simply decide so, I do it this way and don’t want to go any deeper and create dead thoughts around it? That is a big question.
Does this mean I should give it up? Probably not, because the easiest thing is to examine it later, see some wrong connections and give it up. To give up many things that are not easy. Why not? You give it up and remove all the restrictions and all the problems from yourself. When every Wednesday and Saturday you think about it and remember, and everyone around has to remember, that you don’t eat certain foods, for example.
Can watching your speech be an ascetic practice?
And could the most important ascetic practice for a person be watching their speech? Rudolf Steiner has exercises for each day of the week and one general one — that’s what they’re called: seven plus one. And one of the exercises is to watch your speech. That is, every time you want to say something, to look: does this really need to be said, or should it not be said, is it nonsense? Is it really right to say this now? Are you really not doing harm to other people when you say it? Are you really saying it from an impulse, a pure impulse of the word? Or are you saying it just to chatter, or to make someone feel bad, or do you want to strengthen your ego, your importance, to show that you’re present too, and so on?
I want to say that watching your speech looks like an ascetic practice. It looks like a very serious ascetic practice. After all, it’s abstinence: abstinence from self-serving actions, self-serving beliefs, abstinence from one of the main problems of the modern human spiritual structure — from the ego-computer, abstinence from the ego.
Abstinence from a whole series of various dependencies, and among other things abstinence from interacting with energies of a certain type — for example, from interacting with Lucifer. Abstinence from that. I say: I refrain from interacting with this and from touching it. Is that not an incredibly true ascetic practice? And as I describe this now, I have no question about why it should be done. It is a given that this is truth, that abstaining from it is truth.
The connection between ascetic practice and spiritual development
But then can a person’s development as a whole be called that — a person’s observation of their own life and attention, the kind of effort it takes to treat people from love, to be attentive to people? Not just watching your speech — for example, one of the exercises is to listen attentively to whoever is speaking, constantly, every time. Watching your thoughts, your actions. Are not all these exercises, then, in terms of following truth, so-called ascetic practice?
After all, the very word “ascetic practice” carries a certain restriction — as though a person performing ascetic acts has to suffer. And yet, performing ascetic acts, a person does natural, normal, healthy things.
And a person suffers not when they hold back their speech, but when they shout at another person, are angry with another person, want to cause another person harm, want to steal another person’s opinion, to influence them. Is that not actually a negative action for the person?
Because there are a huge number of distortions and, beyond that, a certain parasitism: in many religions spiritual development is not joy but difficulty. This is a very important story: not joy but difficulty. How is it conveyed? Clearly, not everywhere, but in a number of places it is conveyed as something heavy. And that’s why even here, when we looked at the term “ascetic practice,” it mentioned torment, up to one’s own flesh.
Is that really necessary? What is the connection between killing your physical body and developing spiritually? I want to say that in modern times, with the modern structure of the soul and spirit, the construction of the spiritual system, the presence of the “I,” tormenting the physical body is a very strange thing to do. And it is a dependency — simply a dependency of a different kind and a different order.
And ascetic practice, perhaps, lies in refraining from such actions rather than doing them: not harming other people and not harming yourself, either.
Otherwise it’s: let’s not harm other people, but let’s harm ourselves. Where is the energy in this? Where is life here? Where are these spaces of life? Look at it meditatively, in a broadly expanded way. What kind of energy is it, then?
And so, of course, behind every exercise each person will see something of their own: some will see an ascetic practice, some a task for the sake of gain, some actions for the sake of truth. Each will have their own circumstances arising. Clearly, people today like embellishing various things: “Look, this person did this exercise for five hundred days, and it’s called an ascetic practice. And look — money appeared in his account.” Or: “Look — his family life became good.” How is that an indicator of spiritual development? What is the connection between his actions and the result?
By the way, I have seen a whole number of people who constantly claimed the result in advance: that it was their exercises, their ascetic practices that led to another person’s result. When they gave people certain actions to do, they constantly wanted to show it: “Look, it’s we who helped you get here, it’s our actions that helped you.” Even though only a person himself can help himself get somewhere. And then there is a whole spectrum of causes and effects that this person lives through.
Are you willing to do this your whole life?
But you can look at any exercise as a way of attaining some state of bliss — that very fact, that very notion of “bliss.” Or you can watch your speech because it is the truth and there is no need to debate it. “But why?” Because it is the truth. It is absolutely reasonable and clear. It is clear to any sound-minded soul. It is clear to any pure perception. If you need explanations — live. No explanations will convey it. Only your inner call, your inner impulse can bring you to say: “This exercise really is interesting, I’ll try to do it.” The question is not whether you will manage it or not.
I want to say that watching the rightness of your speech always, with all people, is a very difficult exercise. Very. Much more difficult than not eating something on a certain day or wearing clothes of a certain color. Much more difficult than sitting in a cave for six months or some other period of time. Fundamentally much more difficult, because you have to do it your whole life. Your whole life — can you imagine? Not once, but your whole life. And it will never end.
And here is how to test yourself in relation to different exercises: see whether you are willing to do it your whole life. Everything immediately falls into place.
And it’s not even a problem if you understand that it brings a certain positive development and there is some positive effect. But at least look: are you willing to do it your whole life or not? Even if you have a self-serving belief — are you still willing to do it your whole life or not? If you are willing to do it your whole life, that is already a very strong step toward keeping it for yourself as a support, so that you have something to lean on. Even if you shout at someone, scold them, express something wrong in your thoughts, do with words what shouldn’t have been done — what is your support at all? Are you really striving toward this or not?
Sometimes someone says: “A person strives toward this action but still constantly acts, for example, from an ego motive.” How can that be? So he’s striving badly, or what? The thing is that each person has their own structure of energy and their own influence of energies of different types. And so what is the problem if a person has done something bad? Bad.
People have mostly lived decades of their lives — twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, some eighty — without watching their speech. Watching your speech means being constantly aware of it, truly aware of it.
So how many problems did a person cause in forty years when he wasn’t watching, and in the next forty years when he was? In the forty years when he wasn’t watching, he caused phenomenally more. Because his attention wasn’t even directed that way. He didn’t even have the impulse of desire to do so — the impulse of desire to truly act and live out of love for other people.
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