The tragic delusions of asceticism

You are not "free" from the material world when you "extricate yourself from the instincts and impulses of materiality," you have only blocked those things. That is the lie or at least the ignorance of religious asceticism.

Asceticism sells itself as seeking unselfishness when it is utterly selfish in devoting itself to the ridding of all material desires, which can't be accomplished without total selfish dedication to the mission of attaining the desire-less blissful state.

Yes, after fulfilling rather than "overcoming" material desires the desires return, so what? That is called being alive rather than dead. And the tragic delusion of asceticism is that we can only reach real Godhood by evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which can only be accomplished while living in the painful and pleasurable world of desires, which can be sensibly guided in evolution, not blocked, or killed.

The other tragic delusion of asceticism is the great split between the material and the spiritual: there is only the material and the supermaterial. The desireless blissful ascetic state takes place only in the material body and mind, not unlike opium in the monastic mountains of Asia.