So we may say that in the beginning of the life of the Spirit, as history shows it to us, if disillusion marks the first moment, some measure of asceticism, of world-refusal and painful self-schooling, is likely to mark the second moment.
What we are watching is the complete reconstruction of personality; a personality that has generally grown into the wrong shape.

This is likely to be a hard and painful business; and indeed history assures us that it is, and further that the spiritual life is never achieved by taking the line of least resistance and basking in the divine light.
With world-refusal, then, is intimately connected stern moral conflict; often lasting for years, and having as its object the conquest of selfhood in all its insidious forms.

"Take one step out of yourself," say the S[=u]fis, "and you will arrive at God."[57] This one step is the most difficult act of life; yet urged by love, man has taken it again and again.

This phase is so familiar to every reader of spiritual biography, that I need not insist upon it.

"In the field of this body," says Kabir, "a great war goes forward, against passion, anger, pride and greed.