The four renunciations are means to an end and not an end in themselves. All ascetical practices should be modified in the light of the goal: God. Each of these renunciations has its benefits: renouncing one's former life gives one the space, time, and energy to start the spiritual journey; renouncing one's thoughts purifies the heart and lets light in to help one understand the God who is mediated through Scripture, or through beauty and goodness in nature, or in one's very own experience. Renouncing one's concepts of God brings one before God unmediated by texts and barriers that are only descriptive, not an actual experience of the presence of God. [The fourth, renounce the thought of self.] Finally, when the self is rooted out, all illusion, ignorance, and warring passions are tamed and all is God. Emptiness and dazzling darkness become the Transfiguration and (through the spiritual senses) a Transformation. No words can capture this participation in Christ.
— Mary Margaret Funk, Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life