Purification the way to god ( Damascus) Golden chain , Neoplatonic and the way to god

Damascius, known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens. 
 
This is a text taken from the meditations of Damascus and his written thoughts on the Purification , and the way to the Divine. Damascius, known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens born in 480, AD Damascus, Syria
Thus, spoke Damascus

• One who is purifying himself and endeavouring to assimilate himself to the Pure must in the first place discard pleasure and pain as far as possible;
• secondly, the food of which he partakes should be simple, avoiding all luxury, and it should also be in accordance with the laws of justice and temperance.
• thirdly, he must suppress the aimless motion of irrational appetite (what indeed could arouse desire or anger in one who has disengaged himself from all external things?), but if anything of the kind should ever stir in waking or sleeping, it must be quelled speedily by reason;
• fourthly, he must detach himself from sense-perception and imagination, except in so far as it is necessary to make use of them;
• in the fifth place, the man who wants to be set free from the plurality of genesis must dissociate himself from the multifarious variety of opinion;
• the sixth and last precept is to escape from the complexity of discursive reason and seek the simpler forms of demonstration and division as a preparation for the undivided activity of the intellect.

 
He than continues in the words of Plato :
Are pure and true identical, as Plato says? —“Pure” means that a thing is separate from everything else, and “true” that it is exactly what it is, and this is apparently the reason why it is necessary to become pure first, before we can attain truth.

• Therefore, when approaching God, we should strengthen our likeness to him, as far as it lies in our power, through purity; for, as Plato says, “it is unlawful to touch the Pure without being pure.” It is called “unlawful,” because God must not be soiled by an impure contact; at the same time it is impossible, since darkness can never approach light.

The Golden Chain An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy Selected and edited by Algis Uzdavinys p.278.
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Purity thus in this sense shall not be mixed with any dogmatic petty morality arriving from religious fables and laws, but purity here is confined solely in technical and ascetical way. Pure from our bodily appetites, blind desires and irrational passions of the soul.