Imam reproached seeking the material world in such a manner that if sometimes had attended his lesson, he would have lost interest in the world and the world would become broken earthenware for him or her that no one did pay attention to it (material world).
We in our entire life of Imam witnessed that he did not increase something and put that on the top of his belongings; there was just a small land and that had remained from his acting as a heir to his father and that was a farm. He used to spend the income that he earned from the land.
A scholastic who was an ascetic according to Imam did not mean that he should wear tattered clothes and be humiliated or there should be a sign of a beggar in his clothes. Imam believed that while the scholastic should wear suitable clothes he should also make his heart ready and he was saying that reconstruction and improvement of the latter will materialize through morality and paying attention to God.
(Source: the book the mirror of virtue, pp. 108, a memoirs from Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani)