God is holy. But holiness as an isolated concept leads to exaggerations of fear, guilt, shame, alienation, and the like, which always tend to draw people even farther away from God. Self-hate and self-love are both aspects of the same self-centeredness; neither of these is the goal of holiness. Therefore holiness does not mean the extinction of desires, as Buddha taught. Nor does it necessarily require self-sacrifice and asceticism.
"If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." (I Cor. 13:3 NIV).