THE ASCETIC IDEAL - Doctrine of Awakening

Añadido: 2026-05-11

[00:00:23]The term aesthetic usually conjures up a series of grueling images mortified in priestly bodies. starved and skinny monks, self- flagagillation and severe cases of declining physical health.

[00:00:36]These images have become synonymous with the term primarily because of strict sex of Christianity and Indooral religions like Hinduism. Friedrich Nichze in his work the genealogy of morals calls this practice of bodily mortification the aesthetic ideal. To summarize Nichza, in the absence of biological vitality or bodily strength found in a class like the warrior, the priestly type or aesthetic makes mortification undeal. A healthy, strong, and beautiful body is at best a symptom of worldly attachment and at worst a sign of sin, gluttony, wrath, and pride. The aesthetic ideal is therefore the rejection of vain bodily pursuits in an attempt to purify the body for a saintly heavenly existence as is in the case in Christianity or for a detached nirvonic state of mind like it is in the school of modern Buddhism. And if we left off here, niche would be 100% correct. The mortification of the body as it is practiced in these extreme religious paths is a form of life denial. The aesthetic ideal is therefore according to Nichzche a sickness of the will. It follows that Nichze's problem with Buddhism was this exact form of life denial pathology found in the aesthetic ideal. But there is more to the story. According to Julius Eve in his book Buddhism, the doctrine of awakening. This view of aseticism as a deeply lifedenying ideal is quite foreign to its original meaning. Eve agrees with Nichzche that the mortification of the body and mutilation of the will is deeply troubling. as a sign of civilizational degeneration. But Eve's diagnosis is not in the Buddhist aesthetic, but rather in misunderstanding the original meaning of the Atheis. This video will explain Eve's interpretation of the original meaning of aseticism, as well as show that the true Aisus is quite similar to the satisfactory and noble conditions of life than Nichza, Evea, and the ancient Indo-Aryans would have favored.

[00:02:36]We should first begin by examining the original term oisus. Like niche in the genealogy, Avala begins with a linguistic examination. Aisus comes from the Greek word askeu, which quite literally means to train. This can be interpreted quite literally. An aesthetic in this ancient Mediterranean sense is a practicer, someone who is committed to a discipline or training regimen. In ancient Greece, the term was used to refer to the training of athletes in the gymnasium or of those practicing in art such as painting or music. The Romans furthermore adopted the concept but translated it as a discipline. Someone like Cicero, the great order would have been considered an aesthetic of some sense in the Roman sense of the word. In both cases from antiquity, Aisus conveys the act of training, exercise or disciplining oneself in a skill. The corresponding Indo-Uropean or Indo-Aryan term we find in Asia is tapas. It has a similar meaning of training except that it derives from the word tap which means to be hot or to burn. More adequately put, it conveys the idea of intense concentration or glowing. Before the time of the Buddha, tapas was associated with the aesthetic practice meant to purify its practitioners. These often took the form of extreme methods of self-mortification quite similar to our modern conception of aestheticism. But in a Buddhist context, this extreme form of practice was strongly discouraged.

[00:03:59]The term tapas, therefore, is generally used in a positive more moderate form of discipline like self-control, earnest efforts, and self-mastery. In essence, the connection to heat or light is no coincidence either. Tapas is associated with a fiery quality, a cultivation of inner light needed for overcoming the lower, subterranean, and darker aspects of a samsaric existence. It is for this reason that the Buddha literally means the enlightened one. Here we begin to see a connection between the ancient Mediterranean world and that of traditional Buddhism. This is not a coincidence. According to Eve, rather it is to be expected due to a theorized shared origin between the Olympian and Roman religion with that of Buddhism. To put it simply, Eve believed that Buddhism emerged in Indian history as a reaction against priestly decadence that had developed slightly before the life of Prince Edartha. A decadence that prioritized the life-deying dogmas of organized Hinduism over the lifeaffirming values found in its ancient Indo-Aryan origins. Buddhism was therefore a return to an older pure form of religious discipline. the same older and pure form that the ancient Greeks and classical Romans could trace their religious discipline to as well before their own religious corruption. Buddhism as the doctrine of awakening offers us those very traits of severity and nudity which characterize the monumental and features of clarity and strength which may be called in a general sense classical a verile and courageous attitude which would seem prometheian were it not essentially Olympian.

[00:05:36]Buddhist aestheticism shares its origins with the king of Olympus Zeus himself.

[00:05:40]The word deos which we derive the word divine from means to shine. a root that is ascribed to the king of Olympus. This is more than just a linguistic coincidence. In the same sense that we associate the Buddhist aesthetic with the tapas attribute of to glow, we ascribe the highest attribute in all Indo-Aryan religions and their aesthetic practitioners with the quality of to shine. To summarize Eve's theory, there was an older ancient tradition that belonged to the Indo-Uropean people or the Indo-Aryan people. This tradition was inherently masculine as it prioritized self-mastery, self-discipline, and training, both physical and esoteric forms of mental training. The speculative goal of this religion was to elevate the aesthetic to an enlightened state to glow and shine like the ancient skyfather. This religion was also probably warlike as it mainly spread throughout a conquest of a warrior class into both Europe and into Asia. Here the ancient Indo- religion established itself with the Mediterranean as Olympian and in India as the Brahma. It probably also mixed with local traditions as well.

[00:06:44]Eventually, these ancient aesthetic traditions degenerated into weaker or altogether different expressions of faith as was in the case in the Mediterranean with the Socratics and Christianity and in the East with Hindu doctrines of the Atman. Prince Edartha emerged in India during a period of decline. Horrified by the realities of Indian life like sickness, poverty and death. He denied life, renounced his worldly pleasures and fled into the wilderness as an aesthetic, practicing extreme self-mortification, starving himself until his hair fell out and his skin clung to his bones. Though after some time, Prince Edartha found this practice to be an error.

[00:07:22]Eventually, he left, renouncing extreme fasting and aesthetic methods. This led him to the middle way, a form of aeticism aligned with a nobler expression of renunciation.

[00:07:33]Turning away from the indignant protests of his early companions, he stopped mortifying his body, ate to plate his hunger, and returned to the world of human beings. But it was then that his detachment started to develop. The world no longer had a grasp on him since he had become a hero, or like the ancient Greeks would have said, a god. Eve believes that the middle way and the doctrine of awakening which Prince Edtha discovered was not a new religion but an awakening and return to the pure nobler expression of aseticism found in the esoteric Indo-Aryan religion practiced by its warriors and spiritual initiates.

[00:08:11]Understanding primitive Buddhism is therefore the key. It has been somewhat lost to us, but it might have been something akin to the Elusinian mysteries, the Roman cult of Mithros, and the other esoteric cults and schools lost in ancient European history. For this reason, unlike the case with Christian aseticism, which denounces attachment to worldly pleasures as ontologically evil, Buddhism refuses to moralize these issues. Renunciation of the world is not a moral ought to save a soul but is a practice or discipline reserved for a higher cleaner and initiate class in search of optional enlightenment. As Nze points to in the genealogy before the growth of slave morality morals were not a matter of good and evil but of good and bad. The good were those of high rank and what was called good was what was habitually understood as valuable and beneficial for noble life. to quote Nze rather it was the good themselves that is to say the noble powerful highsted high-minded who felt establishing themselves and their actions as good that is of the first rank in contradiction to all the lowly low-minded common and plebeian theusis like the codes and laws of a warrior aristocracy is beneficial to life it is a discipline for life that is noble standing above the lowly and subterranean it is why as it is the case with Prince Edartha The ancient Aisus was often found in the aristocratic classes in the helenic world. Through this lens, the Aissus becomes not the life denial ideal of a malnourished priest and withering monk, but more of a vital expression of warrior-like institutions, that of self-mastery, discipline, courage, training, and transcendental selfdeification.

[00:09:56]Furthermore, Eve argues that the doctrine of awakening satisfies the four conditions for noble life. Firstly, it offers a complete aesthetic system of discipline. Buddhism begins with the recognition of duca that conditioned existence is unstable, unsatisfactory, and bound to suffering. Eve emphasizes that this is not pessimism, but a lucid realism. Any noble doctrine must start from a sober confrontation with reality rather than hiding in some sort of you know comforting myth. Secondly, the doctrine of awakening is universally valid and it is realistic. It depends on one's own effort. For Eve, aeticism in its Olympian and Buddhist interpretation prioritizes aristocratic realism and discipline over any form of moralism, placing an important prerequisite for liberation on the individual rather than on the collective. Because the doctrine breaks effeminite forms of tradition and inherently places the enlightened individual above the samsaric collective. It can be called universal.

[00:10:54]Not in the sense that anyone will achieve enlightenment but in the sense that in theory with the proper aptitude and training anyone can. In this sense, Eve provides the metaphor of wrestling a snake. As a man who wants serpents goes out for serpents, looks for serpents and finding a powerful serpent grasps it by the body or by the tail. and the serpent striking at him bites his hand or arm or other part so that he suffers death or mortal anguish. And why is this? Because he wrongly grasped the serpent. There are men who are harmed by this doctrine.

[00:11:22]And why is this? Because they wrongly grasp the doctrine. Thirdly, the doctrine is purely noble in spirit. The doctrine provides a precise method for transcendence which is dependent on personal overcoming and exercise of the will. Sila, samadei, pana to be specific. A purely noble characteristic of the doctrine is that it is free from those proitizing mania which exist almost without exception in direct proportion to the plebeian and anti-aristocratic character of belief.

[00:11:52]Aceticism in its Olympian and Buddhist interpretation was inherent to the noble classes of their respective societies due to the intense individual effort and detachment from earthly concerns needed to practice. It is noble because it is a challenge taken on by the self for purely selfspiritual reasons not for the larger or traditional samsaric collective. Fourthly, Eve argues that the doctrine is accessible to all noble spirits in all points of history. It might even be more accessible in modern times than that of our imperial predecessors. We have seen that the ancient tradition has this precise significance when it speaks of the essential nature of individuals who can only be either imperial or perfectly awakened. We are close to the summits of the Aryan spiritual world. Ultimately, the doctrine is a practical and experiential practice. It is not a theology based on speculative philosophy, but a heroic, aristocratic, and personal discipline suited to a spiritually differentiated individual capable of confronting reality without relying on speculative theories found in many of the strange egalitarian and moralist creeds popular today. I now shall leave you with a very important quote. Aeticism is not a cowardly resignation before life's vicissitudes, but rather a struggle of a spiritual kind, which is not any less heroic than the struggle of a knight on the battlefield. As the Buddha himself said, "It is better to die fighting than to live as one vanquished."

[00:13:23]Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, leave a like, share it, and subscribe to see more. It really is so encouraging. So, thank you so much. Okay. Peace.