ascesis

self-discipline, particularly as a religious observance; asceticism.

The Neo Platonic philosophy, it will now be seen, is monism, and the completion, consequently, of ancient philosophy, so far as it would reduce the totality of being to a single ultimate ground. As able, however, to find its highest principle, from which all the rest are derived, not through self-consciousness and natural rational explanation, but only through ecstasy, mystic annihilation of self, ascesis, theurgy, it is a desperate overleaping of all—and, consequently, the self-destruction of ancient—philosophy.

This intellectual discipline, this progressive unification and concentration of the mind is an important part of the preparatory ascesis, the work of purification which must be carried through before any approach towards the mystical union can be expected.

The praxis or "exercise" of asceticism and self-denial of impulses or passions for the sake of piety, theosis, and connection with God.

And this we do find in the Basilican, the Byzantine, and the Romanesque architectures, each more perfect than another, and each lacking in an ever diminishing degree much of the perfect holiness of the Saint of "the most high,"—they came and passed away like different periods in the askesis of a holy soul aiming after the perfection of the spiritual life, and truly therefore they are Christian.

Saint Anthony the Great described a process of purifying the nous by eliminating the disturbances aroused in it by thoughts, feelings, images, imitative movements—all the things that have been unconsciously taken in and remembered by the personality. [...] To achieve this illumination and separation requires a special kind of effort, and this is the real nature of ascesis, noetic ascesis for the enlightening of the nous.