Ascesis

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.

Source: wiktionary

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.

Source: wiktionary

The happiness of the Oriental psyche lies in the ecstasy of feeling united with the universal cosmos. Ascesis, self-redemption, and poverty are better realized ideals in Oriental culture than in our Western society.

Source: wiktionary

The involuntary poor lived, day in and day out, with circumstnaces that might make a zealous monk green with envy: ready-made rags, stench, starvation, fiscal penury, and unbounded physical and social suffering. Yet this population has received less attention in religious history and scholarship than those who chose their asceses, and ancient sermons about the poor have often been neglected in favor of more "theological" themes.

Source: wiktionary