Κεφ. ΟΗ'

The Purpose of Asceticism

Ascetic practice serves as the essential spiritual discipline for cleansing the passionate aspects of the soul.

The ascetic life is a spiritual discipline that purifies the passionate part of the soul.¹²

Read the original Latin

Πρακτική ἐστι μέθοδος πνευματικὴ τὸ παθητικὸν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκκαθαίρουσα.

Notes

1 ↩Rendered “the ascetic life”: here the term means the practical discipline of spiritual formation, not merely action in general.
2 ↩The “passionate part” is the aspect of the soul subject to passions and disordered impulses.

The Praktikos companion

A daily portion of stillness

Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.

Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.

Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent

Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app) →