One of Simone's Contemporaries, by Mark

A while back I read several books by French philosopher Pierre Hadot, who has focused on the role of spiritual exercises in philosophy. Through Hadot, I became acquainted with this short passage from a diary kept by Frenchman and Marxist sociologist Georges Friedmann in the 1940s:

“To take flight” every day! At least for a moment, which may be brief, so long as it is intense. A 'spiritual exercise' every day—alone or in the company of a person who also wants to better herself.

Spiritual exercise. Leave duration behind. Try to strip yourself of your own passions, of the vanities and the rash of noise surrounding your name (which, from time to time, itches like a chronic affliction). Flee backbiting. Strip yourself of pity and of hatred. Love all free human beings. Become eternal by transcending yourself.<!--more-->

This effort upon yourself is necessary; this ambition is just. Many are those who become completely absorbed in militant politics and the preparation of the social revolution. Few, very few, are those who, to prepare for the revolution, are willing to make themselves worthy of it."


In What is Ancient Philosophy? Hadot offers the following comment on Friedmann: “The ‘engaged’ philosopher always runs the risk of letting himself be swept along by political passions and hatreds. This is why it was vital, in Friedmann’s view, that in order to improve the human situation we concentrate our strength ‘on limited groups, even on individuals,’ and ‘on the spiritual effort (the transformation of a few),’ which, he thought, would eventually be communicated and diffused.”

Hadot goes on to describe such spiritual exercises as “voluntary, personal practices meant to bring about a transformation of the individual, a transformation of the self.”