The study of asceticism as a cultural practice and an experience of “self-gathering”

In this article, a cultural practice is considered as a border between the culture and the lack of culture. The culture as a universal experience of being appears like a bridge through the abyss of the “human, all too human” (Nietzsche), randomness, irrationality, mortality (finitude) to the order, loftiness, consciousness and the ontological fullness. In this case, the cultural practices perform the function of the “rod posts” for this bridge over the abyss. The author substantiates a thesis that the phenomenon of asceticism as a practice of overcoming and “self-gathering” is nonconfessional, it is above religion, and the ascetical experience of self-limitation forms the vector of the way from the lack of culture to the culture of identity, integrity, indivisibility and the unity with all existence.

das Man, the study of asceticism, spiritual culture, cultural practice, experience, communication, subject, “a small man”, das Man