I choose as my starting-point the twentieth-century religious and political philosopher Simone Weil. Why choose to begin with Weil? For three reasons. Firstly, in Weil's work we have a sense of self and subjectivity that speaks directly to us and reflects an existential sense of self and political individualism that resonates with late modernity, even though she advocates a destruction of the ego. Secondly, this subjectivity is linked with ways of thinking, acting and dying that can be characterised as ascetical in so far as she performs the ambiguity of the self and responds to the memory of tradition. Thirdly, Weil can be seen to stand at the end of a tradition of Christian renunciation and asceticism and provides an access point for our understanding of that tradition. Understanding a sense of religious subjectivity with Weil allows us to develop a strong form of the thesis of the ascetic self in relation to tradition. It furthermore provides us with an entry point into the world of South Asian reflection, separated from our twentieth-century example by possibly a thousand years and by different locations and languages. As future chapters unfold, the contrast between the Indian and European accounts will bring into focus the centrality of subjectivity in any description of asceticism.