Ascesis does not require external verification. One who has acquired the truth of ascesis laughs at all skepticism. For ascesis there is no doubt. Ascesis authorizes, and it also deflates all imperatives. Is ascesis the highest truth? From its own perspective, it certainly is. But it cannot erase its cognitive and neurological coordinates. Ascesis is a habit and a state. It may very well know the absolute, tap into the élan vital, be the very object that it intuits and participate in God's creation of the world. Nevertheless, it is only one of four modes of truth