Austerity is well exemplified as the path within the Bhagavad Ghita Chapter 6 Volume 2. Despite that the western practitioner must be open to all but never dogmatically follow a path without consideration of their socialization process. In the book, “Tantra Shastra an Introduction” by Swami Satyananda Saraswati clearly stated that being a celibate or recluse is not required for individual power and knowledge lying at the depth of human consciousness. Neither food, character, nor social relationships, marital or emotional life stand in the way of developing higher states of consciousness. The text further states that there is the other opposite as a “cult of renouncing.”