Transfiguring Desire: Ascetic Reordering in Solovyov, Florensky, and Eastern Thought

In his adolescence, Russian philosopher and theologian Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900) turned away from Orthodox Christianity and embraced nihilism, later studying philosophy under Pamfil Yurkevich (1826–1874).1placeholder His 1874 thesis challenged the positivist dismissal of Aristotle’s essentialism, or philosophical realism, by advocating for intuitive noetic comprehension that integrates reason and intuition.2placeholder Consciousness is a unified whole, Solovyov argued, required both the phenomenon, validated through reason (dianoia), and the noumenon, accessed through intuition.3placeholder Positivism, he contested, recognizes only the former, denying the reality of intuitive knowledge.4placeholder For Solovyov, the essence of an object could only be grasped through intuition (with consciousness predicated upon both reason and intuition) insofar as he sought to reconcile the subject–object dualism inherent in German idealism.5placeholder

Solovyov identified moral dignity as arising through reason so that asceticism served not to reject material nature but to transcend it. Extreme forms of self-restraint, integral to certain Oriental traditions, equate evil with physical matter, contrasting with Christianity, which locates evil in the moral sphere. In Vedantic thought, evil is the illusion of separateness from the absolute Being stemming from a moment of ignorance, which introduces duality and the misidentification of objects as distinct entities.6placeholder In an apparent nexus, Solovyov emphasized that evil arises from this misidentification and the subsequent false perception of separateness from the one spirit.7placeholder The wise, he argued, restore self-identity through ascetic practices that transcend in order to overcome the illusion of separateness.8placeholder If nature is considered non-existent, evil cannot belong to the material domain, reinforcing the moral basis for human ascension.9placeholder Atheistic Sankhya philosophy similarly acknowledges the existence of evil as founded in the multiplicity of entities. Here, evil is the connection between spirit and nature (Prakriti), with the ultimate goal being the spirit’s self-knowledge as distinct from nature. This subtly mirrors the Buddhist teaching of mindful awareness (sati) that seeks transcendence from the dualistic experience of the world. Oppenheimer’s reflection on the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, based on a similar Eastern worldview, juxtaposes the destructive power of the atomic bomb within the locus of progressive immateriality as the dissolution of consciousness itself.10placeholder

In contrast to Solovyov, Buddhism reconciles spirit and nature as equally illusory, advocating indifference rather than ascetic striving.11placeholder Buddhist aesthetics, with its emphasis on the beauty of impermanence and serenity in the face of potentiality, propagates a view of desire as a transient play of shadows. Asceticism, in this view, is tantamount to “not-willing,” insofar as rejecting both physical pleasure and the desire for absorption in the absolute. Historical examples, such as Democritus’ self-blinding to escape material distractions, and Egyptian Gnosticism, which saw nature as the work of an evil unconscious Demiurge, reflect varied perceptions of matter as antithetical to spiritual enlightenment. Persian Manicheism, influential in Augustine’s thought, equates the highest godhead with pure light while recognizing the material world as inherently deficient.12placeholder Such a schema does not preclude the Buddhist emphasis on the middle way, over and against self-indulgence and self-mortification.

Solovyov used these Eastern and Gnostic frameworks to illustrate a common conception: material nature cannot perfectly satisfy the soul’s demands. Here, Orthodox Christianity diverges by identifying apatheia (indifference) as the sin of akadia marked by spiritual paralysis and melancholy. Asceticism elevates human dignity by transcending material existence without wholly denying it.13placeholder His work remains enmeshed in the tension between Eastern and Western thought, morality, and the human struggle to reconcile the physical and spiritual dimensions of life.

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For Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), chastity is synonymous with “bliss”, a term laden with classical, biblical, and philosophical significance.14placeholder In the Greek, makarios connotes blessedness and a state of eudemonic fulfilment—as echoed in the Beatitudes and throughout the patristic literature. Florensky traces the semantic development of makarios from Homer and Hesiod—as the blessed state of the gods—to its later New Testament connotations.15placeholder Makaria understood as a transfigured state in which the “dizzily whirling” heart, prone to endless self-devouring passions finds its cessation of striving. For Schelling—as Florensky notes—makarios signifies that the heart, finally becalmed, has ceased its relentless consumption of itself.16placeholder

Integral to Florensky is the concept of chastity, which is both a state of inner bliss in which the soul’s destructive impulses are subsumed, and the negation of passion to transmutation into a state of “eternal memory” — a state where selfhood is transformed into pure possibility.²⁶ In this state, Florensky infers, the individual “has the power not to sin”, indicating an ascetic mastery over one’s own nature.²⁷ This conception is predicated upon ontological reordering whereby selfhood, once defined by its restless, devouring energy, is transfigured to a mode of existence marked by creative restraint and divine participation. Florensky’s exploration of makarios departs from the Buddhist transformation of desire into meditative insight, insofar as the latter envisages the termination of desire in non-being.17placeholder

The ontological dimension of chastity, for Florensky, hinges on “eternal memory” as the capacity of the soul to inscribe its experience onto the eternal canvas of Truth.18placeholder The soul, illuminated by the unfading light of divine revelation, transcends the destructive cycle of desire and resultant sin whereby its inner turmoil—its ceaseless satiation—is converted into a self-contained possibility that mirrors the divine order. Florensky, here, is consonant with Schelling’s ideal of negating the tangible—that which is “substanzlos” (without substance)—in order to access an intangible, eternal reality.19placeholder In makaria, the heart’s devouring flame is not extinguished by a negative denial of passion but is rather transformed into a creative force that affirms life in its purest possibility. This reorientation becomes, in its most acute sense, a call to transubstantiate lower, base passions into higher, spiritual symbols.

Florensky parallels between the Christian attainment of makaria and the Buddhist nirvana—the latter being a state in which the fires of passion have been quenched and the disturbances of samsara rendered impotent. In both, the extinguishing of desire is not a nihilistic void but a liberating reinstatement of an inner peace that is, in itself, creative and life-affirming. Indeed, such peace evokes the sabbath rest described in Hebrews 4—a metaphysical sabbath. Liturgically, this eternal memory as inner rest recurs in the Orthodox Church’s funeral liturgy whereby being “remembered” by God connotes both an assurance of personal salvation and a participation in the eternal life of the Church—a life free from sorrow, pain, and death. Moreover, this parallel is enriched by the Buddhist aesthetic of silence of the mind in nirvana, a state where desire dissolves into luminous awareness.

Florensky is particularly critical of the pagan preoccupation with the “cult of ancestors” wherein monuments and rituals were deployed to secure an everlasting remembrance of the deceased. Yet, these attempts, ultimately inadequate, merely provide temporary consolation—a “poor positing” of what is, in truth, an eternal reality. The ephemeral sense of pagan memory is captured in the scene of Odysseus attempting to embrace the shade of his mother in Hades—as the insubstantiality of memory untethered from the divine.

For Florensky, living memory categorically supersedes passive recall of past events to creative engagement with the eternal. Drawing on Plato, if memory is the “mother of the Muses” (as the basis for all genuine knowledge), then memory becomes the mode by which the soul transfigures transient experiences into symbols of eternal truth. This process of creative reconstruction supersedes intellectual activity as the very means whereby the temporal self is reconstituted in the image of the eternal. Resultantly, chastity—in the highest sense—demands that one not merely resist the immediate lure of sinful passions but also actively participate in self-transcendence. By converting base passions into symbols of divine truth in accordance and cooperation with divine grace, the individual experiences a metamorphosis that affirms life’s potential for immortality. The self, once defined by its destructive impulses, is thus reoriented toward a creative and disciplined engagement with the eternal. Herein, from erotic love, conjugal fidelity, and parental affection, is surpassed towards the latent desire for eternal significance—a longing that finds its fullest expression only when it is directed toward the divine. Yet without the anchorage of the eternal, efforts at creative expression or ancestral commemoration reduce human life to a series of iterations that move “from nothing to nothing.” Florensky thus posits that only by embracing asceticism—a disciplined reorientation of one’s inner life—can one break free from the cycle of ceaseless, self-devouring desire. In ascetic practice, the soul is called upon to “build itself” in the earthly realm, transmuting its lower passions into higher contemplative symbols. This process is not a renunciation of life per se, insofar as the task of chastity is not to annihilate desire but to transform it, so that selfhood becomes an expression of divine possibility rather than a vortex of endless regressive consumption.

Florensky envisages chastity as a turning away from the restless, devouring impulses of the finite self toward an integration with the eternal memory of God. In this state, the soul no longer remains subject to the corrosive forces of time and sin but is instead transfigured into a realm of immutable truth. The Church, through its liturgical rites and sacramental life, embodies this ideal. Through the disciplined pursuit of spiritual integrity, one participates in the “eternal triumph over devouring,” achieving a state of being where life itself is reconstituted in the image of the divine.

In closing, while the respective schemas of Solovyov and Florensky, and their parallels in Buddhist thought, address the purpose and nature of aesthetic practice as a precursor to the question of overcoming temporal existence, they proceed via markedly different paths. Solovyov’s approach, predicated on the integration of reason with intuitive noesis, dismantles subject–object dualism to affirm that true moral dignity arises from engaging with both the material and the transcendent. In contrast, Florensky reconfigures ascetic practice by redefining chastity as an experiential state of makarios—a process wherein base passions are transmuted into eternal memory, reordering the self towards divine participation. Meanwhile, Buddhist asceticism, invested in the dissolution of desire through mindful non-willing and the negation of duality, offers a distinct model that perceives desire as an ephemeral play of shadows. Such perspectives of ascetic practice share a commitment to realizing an immutable, eternal truth beyond the transience of the material world.