Conclusion from the Previous Reflection
When we survey the lives of those who came to the end of themselves—whether in monasteries, palaces, or forests—it becomes clear that the riches of this world, ambition, pleasure, and even the pursuit of knowledge, must first collapse before the possibility of transformation opens. But is collapse failure? Or is it the stripping away of illusions so that the real can be seen for what it is? This question rests at the heart of our inquiry. We do not speak merely of financial riches, but of the whole scaffolding of human ambition—position, pride, influence, indulgence, and intellectual mastery. All these, glorious as they may seem, eventually betray the seeker by revealing their own insufficiency.
Why must ambition collapse before wisdom is born? Is it not ambition that propels progress, that leads to the discovery of continents, to the inventions of machines, to the creation of systems that make life better? And yet, beneath each of these triumphs lies the restless heart, still yearning for something more. Augustine, in his Confessions, described how his heart was “restless until it found rest in God.” The point is not that ambition or pleasure or knowledge are inherently evil, but that when they are made ultimate, they become idols that inevitably disappoint.
Consider the paradox: humanity builds, creates, discovers, and masters. Yet every age also leaves behind a litany of despair, depression, and disillusionment among those who seemingly had everything. Why do stories repeat themselves? Why does the actor with wealth and fame end in solitude or addiction? Why does the conqueror who wins kingdoms still feel unsatisfied? Might it be that the collapse is not an accident, but a doorway into truth?
The collapse is thus not the end, but the threshold. Only when the scaffolding falls does the person finally confront the self without disguise. This confrontation is painful—Buddha on the verge of starvation, Ashoka watching the battlefield of Kalinga drenched in blood, Augustine writhing in guilt, Tolstoy staring into the abyss of suicide, Francis stripping himself naked before his father. But what is stripped away is what never satisfied in the first place.
The conclusion we carry forward is this: true realization comes only after the bankruptcy of human striving. Until the soul reaches that moment of emptiness, it cannot be filled. Transformation requires death before resurrection, an ending before a beginning. To come to the end of oneself is not to perish—it is to awaken.
1. What They All Shared
What then is common among these five figures? At first glance, their contexts could not be more different: a prince of India, an emperor of Maurya, a bishop of North Africa, a Russian novelist, and a medieval Italian friar. Yet when we look closely, the pattern emerges: all were born into privilege or acquired greatness at an early age. They had tasted wealth, power, and influence, and yet found them bitter on the tongue of the soul.
Siddhartha Gautama was born into luxury, shielded from suffering by palace walls, yet the sight of sickness, old age, and death undid him. Ashoka inherited not only royalty but the destiny of empire, and still the cost of war brought him to despair. Augustine mastered rhetoric and philosophy, basked in intellectual prestige, and pursued sensual delights, yet confessed to being enslaved by lust and emptiness. Tolstoy possessed land, fame, brilliance, and acclaim, yet confessed that he longed for death as the only honest solution. Francis of Assisi, heir to a wealthy merchant, squandered his youth in pleasure and battle, until a voice from a crucifix reordered his world.
Why do those who “have it all” so often declare, “It is nothing”? What do they see from the vantage point of riches that the poor cannot? Might the privileged, once at the summit, discover that there is no summit at all—only mist? These stories remind us that fulfillment cannot be bought, inherited, or built by prestige. Fulfillment lies elsewhere.
And here lies the irony: while they possessed what most mortals chase, they discovered it was not worth possessing. Their testimony is a warning, though rarely heeded. The young still chase fame, wealth, sensuality, and knowledge as though these will satisfy. The testimony of history is clear: once attained, each proves insufficient. Yet each generation must discover this anew. Why do we not learn from those who went before us? Perhaps because we all wish to test it for ourselves.
Thus, what binds the five is not their greatness but their emptiness. Not their achievement, but their disappointment. Their greatness makes them visible, their disappointment makes them human, and their transformation makes them instructive. They teach that glory is hollow, but collapse can open the door to truth.
2. The Question of the Other Side
But is this simply the case of “the grass being greener on the other side”? Could it be that dissatisfaction is just human nature—that no matter what one has, it will never be enough? If so, then Buddha, Ashoka, Augustine, Tolstoy, and Francis were not sages, but simply restless wanderers who could not appreciate their lot. Is human yearning simply endless chasing after shadows?
If this were merely envy in disguise, their stories would end in further accumulation—seeking more power, more lovers, more glory. Yet they did not. Instead, each turned away from worldly glory, not toward another worldly ambition but toward something utterly different: renunciation, repentance, humility, and in the case of Augustine and Francis, explicit surrender to God. That is more than chasing another patch of grass. It is the recognition that all the meadows of earth cannot satisfy the thirst of the soul.
Still, the rhetorical question must haunt us: are we deceiving ourselves when we honor such renunciations? Was Augustine merely tired? Was Tolstoy merely depressed? Was Francis merely eccentric? Skeptics may say so. Yet the fruits of their transformations—the monastic orders of Francis, the enduring thought of Augustine, the nonviolent legacy of Ashoka, the spiritual literature of Tolstoy, and the profound influence of Buddhism—suggest that what they found was more enduring than any palace, kingdom, or library.
So perhaps the grass was not greener, but the soil was deeper. Their shift was not from one field to another, but from surface to root, from illusion to essence. They ceased to compare and began to see. Perhaps this is the true end of oneself: not to covet another pasture, but to stop grazing altogether, and instead to sit in silence until the hunger itself is transformed.
The “grass” metaphor reveals human restlessness, but their witness shows that the soul can indeed find rest. And the rest they found was not in more possessions, but in relinquishing the very need for them. Is this not what Jesus meant when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”?
3. The Plight of the Many
But what of the mere mortals—the 99%—who never taste such privilege? What of those who live lives full of hardship, yearning, and yet achieve nothing by the standards of glory? If the mighty must collapse before they find truth, what of the lowly who have nothing to collapse in the first place? Is their life merely pitiful, an endless striving for what they will never attain?
This is the hard question. The poor laborer who dies in obscurity, the mother who sacrifices but is forgotten, the millions who live and die without fame or wealth—have they failed? Or are they closer to truth than the privileged, for having never been deceived by luxury in the first place? Jesus Himself said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Might it be that the poor have an advantage?
Yet the yearning of the poor is no less real. The worker longs for comfort, the hungry long for food, the illiterate long for wisdom, the oppressed long for freedom. Does this yearning not mirror, in its own way, the restlessness of Augustine or the despair of Tolstoy? If so, then all humanity shares the same condition: we all yearn for what we do not have, and even when we get it, it does not satisfy. The difference is only one of degree, not of kind.
The saddest truth is this: people often want most desperately what others already despise. The rich young ruler wanted eternal life, but he could not relinquish his wealth. He clung to what he had, though what he had was the very obstacle. So too, the poor may cling to the dream of wealth, imagining it will bring rest, even as the wealthy confess its emptiness. Is this not the tragedy of humanity, that we chase what others wish to escape?
Thus the plight of the many is not to be pitied as lesser than the plight of the few. The conditions differ, but the yearning is the same. Whether rich or poor, famous or forgotten, every soul must still come to the end of itself before it can be transformed. The difference is only the path, never the destination.
4. You Cannot Lose What You Do Not Have
And yet, is not the wisest one the person who never clings to riches in the first place? If collapse is necessary, then blessed is the one who has little to collapse. If surrender is the goal, then blessed is the one who has little to surrender. “You cannot lose what you do not have”—what a paradox, yet what freedom.
The one who lives simply, without craving glory, without clutching at knowledge, without grasping for power, walks a sweeter path. For them, life is not a battlefield of ambition but a pilgrimage of trust. They are not stripped by crisis, for they have nothing to be stripped of. They are not undone by collapse, for their scaffolding was never built. They live close to the ground, close to the soil, close to the humility of existence. Is this not the simplicity of the lilies of the field, who neither toil nor spin, yet are clothed in splendor?
The world may call such a life pitiful or wasted, but perhaps it is the truest life of all. The poor in spirit are free. The meek inherit the earth. The last are made first. Why? Because they have nothing to lose, and so nothing to fear. The collapse that torments the powerful is a storm that never troubles their door.
Yet even here, choice remains. The one without riches may still yearn for them. The one without fame may still covet it. Poverty of circumstance does not guarantee abundance of spirit. What matters is not what one has, but whether one clings. Detachment is not about wealth, but about the heart. The one who holds loosely, even if rich, may be freer than the one who grasps tightly, even if poor.
Thus, the sweetest truth may be this: to never have desired glory is to never be enslaved by it. To never have tasted ambition’s wine is to never suffer its hangover. Blessed is the one who never needed to come to the end of themselves, because they began there already. They walk in freedom.
Conclusion
So we return to the central paradox. The end of oneself is the beginning of truth. For the rich and famous, this often comes through collapse—ambition failing, pleasure souring, power corroding. For the poor and ordinary, it may come through resignation, endurance, or faithful humility. In every case, the soul must reach the limit of its striving, and then—only then—discover the door to life.
But this conclusion is, finally, one person’s reflection. Each is free to choose what to believe, to test the testimonies of the wise or to chart their own course. Perhaps you will agree that riches collapse before truth, or perhaps you will cling to the hope that the next acquisition will satisfy. The choice remains yours.
As for me, I have seen enough to say: coming to the end of oneself is not the end, but the beginning.
