The true goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is a mystical life of union with God, then the path to it includes the ascent that leads to this peak. As I have said so many times, “Life’s journey is an Ascension to the Heavenly Father”. As such, this path is different than the peak; yet it is organically connected to it, in the same way as the ascent of a mountain it to the peak. Only by prolonged effort, by discipline, can a greater union with God be reached. Efforts that don’t contribute to this crowning, this final greater union with God, seem to be without purpose.

Indeed the real connection between spiritual discipline and greater union with God is closer than that between the path and the goal. Even though the living of that union is realized at the final end of spiritual efforts, its aura begins in the soul beforehand, along with them.

Christian growth requires a whole series of efforts until it is at-tained. The Apostle Paul compares these strivings with the training that athletes employ to get in shape in or-der to win. Without referencing the particular word asceticism ( i.e., the manner of life, practices, or principles of an ascetic; the doctrine that a person can attain a high spiritual and moral state by practicing self-denial, self-mortification; rigorous self-denial; abstinence) St. Paul used the image of the ancient physical exercises to characterize the efforts made by the Christian to reach greater spiritual growth. Also, St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen later introduced the terms of asceticism and ascetic. Little by little in the East they gained a monastic coloring. Monasteries are called askitiria, places for physical training. The ascetic is the monk who strives to obtain greater spiritual growth by observing all the rules of restraint or temperance through cleansing from the passions. Origen calls zealous Christians ascetics; persons who discipline themselves to mortify the passions and develop good habits that lead to greater union with God.

St. Neilos the Ascetic gives us a detailed comparison of the spiritual ascetic with the athlete in the arena. Asceticism then is that part of spirituality that deals with the rules and efforts that bring a person to the first step of the ascent to perfection, to contemplation and union with God. It is the active part of the spiritual life, the self-coercion and cooperative that God requires of us.