Ego is able to convert everything to its own use, even spirituality. For example, if you have learned of a particularly beneficial meditation technique of spiritual practice, then ego's attitude is, first to regard it as an object of fascination and, second to examine it. Finally, since ego is seemingly solid and cannot really absorb anything, it can only mimic. Thus ego tries to examine and imitate the practice of meditation and the meditative way of life. When we have learned all the tricks and answers of the spiritual game, we automatically try to imitate spirituality, … Ego translates everything in terms of its own state of health, its own inherent qualities. It feels a sense of great accomplishment and excitement at having been able to create such a pattern. At last it has created a tangible accomplishment, a confirmation of its own individuality.

*Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.

So,here is the prime temptation of self-denial as spiritual practice. The ego-sense will gladly grab onto spirituality in a subtle, twisted effort to validate and enhance its self-sense through the very means that are meant to transform the ego-sense into the Divine-likeness. Even the aspirations for spiritual enlightenment and a heaven can be a very selfish pursuit. Meditation halls, synagogues, ashrams, mosques, and churches are as apt to be hidings for ego-glorification as any bar in the land.

In working with a person who had gotten into meditation, he informed me of seeking to deny the ego. A means he was doing this was through not speaking the word “I.” He told me of this. I said, “The aim of spiritual practice is not the annihilation of the self, but the transformation of the self.”

So, see, all self-denial is a denial only to make room for the transformation of the process of self-centeredness, which is based on a sense of an individual-separate I-ness, into an I-ness with awareness of connection with the Divine and others. Healthy asceticism is not to glorify the ego-sense, but utilize the ego-sense in its own translation into a connective-self.

Therefore, I encourage a natural asceticism. That is, a self-denial that is naturally in agreement with one's relationship with the Divine, not a forced or extreme denial in any sense. Here, as in all things, moderation is important. Self-indulgence and extreme self-denial or each most likely to be ego-drives seeking to utilize spiritual gymnastics to validate and glorify itself. This is an inverted form of humbleness, and is really prideful. So, be discerning, be natural, and seek spiritual discernment in all the means of religious and spiritual practice, not least in denial practices.