To be an ascetic is to exist without pretense. The ascetic does not avoid pleasure, but avoids the state of being in which pleasure detracts from the enjoyment of the thing itself.
The ascetic chooses simple food in order to relish the purpose of the food—to strengthen and restore—more than the sensation of it. The ascetic eats neither more nor less than is needed, and gives glory to God.
The ascetic abstains from sex, because the desire to be one can never be fulfilled by physical means. It is not enough to touch another body—the desire is to merge with it. Yet in the morning, there they lie: two, not one. So the ascetic abstains altogether and values the body as it is: separate and untouchable.
The ascetic separates from society to experience life as it comes: without filtering, without distribution of responsibility, without distraction from hardship. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not avoided. The ascetic knows this better than anyone.
The ascetic does not wear more than is needed, nor makes the bed too soft nor the music too frequent. The ascetic does not reject human company in itself, but values silence, meditation, reflection.
The ascetic is not concerned with war, with social unrest or any of the affairs of a people so married to excess, so entangled in the form of things that they have no concept of what life is.
The ascetic rejects the sensory experience of life in favor of life itself: not how it tastes, nor how it feels, but what it is. The ascetic spends long hours in meditation and silence to determine what life is. When it is stripped of the adornments of society, what is it?
A wise man said:
“Every question possesses a power that is lost in the answer.”
- Night by Elie Wiesel
The ascetic is always asking, always searching, always listening, and so retains the power of the question, which is the essence of life. Life is one great Question. Our business is to ask it well.
The ascetic rejects anything that detracts from the asking or the searching or the listening. It is impossible to separate oneself entirely from the form of things, but the ascetic approaches that ideal. Only in death is the ideal attained, and therein lies the conundrum—the very same conundrum as the Question and the Answer: the ascetic approaches the essence of life by separation from the form of things, but complete separation only comes by death. Thus, the essence of life is entangled with the necessity of death. Life flourishes when the form of things begins to die, until it dies entirely and only life remains.
Life flourishes when the form of things begins to die, until it dies entirely and only life remains.
Life is a Question, but approaches the Answer as the Question intensifies. Thus, question and answer are inextricably bound, and become one in the place where we are formless. In the beginning, the earth was without form and void. Life was not a reply to the void, but an inquiry into it.