Abstract

The ancient philosophies, both Eastern and Western, expound a way of liberation from the fleeting and sensual world of ever-changing experience and toward the reality of true being, free from death and untruth. For this soteriological purpose, the perfect conception of self-control is offered as the perfect means of liberation. The connection between the two realms of the empirical world and the reality of true being is fixed in a human being, which is viewed as a complex corporeal, mental, and extra-mental structure, free from any connection with the body and its intellectual activity. What is more, self-control does not mean a simple rational command endowed with ethical value. Philosophical instructions praise...