Spiritual poverty

This is the intensification of interior discipline, such as fasting, promoting spiritual detachment and the external indication of commitment to a specific way. Such poverty encompasses affective poverty – indifference to money and what it can buy. Poverty of spirit as an aspect of self-denial is part of the Islamic faith, abstinence from material goods and sensual pleasures having developed from abstinence from sin. The Sufis consider poverty as one of the six stations of spirituality, a means of achieving liberation from that which distracts one from God; poverty of spirit acknowledges need for God. To St John of the Cross, spiritual poverty provides the detachment for quiet and repose, with none of the fatigue inherent in covetousness. Concern is then only for the essentials of devotional life and with using things which assist in devotion. Not coveting material or spiritual things, the only coveting is for being right with and pleasing God. Fixing the eyes on the reality of inner perfection there is no interest in self-gratification.