renunciates' morality.....unchallengable pronouncements

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In the East, the abstractions derived from mystical experiences of unity have created not only the concept of Oneness, but a religious ideology, ethics, and hierarchy that flow from it. (We define ideology as a worldview containing a program or ideal of how to live - i.e., a morality.) The mystical experience is important, both as a historical factor influencing the perceptions of humanity, and also because of its relevance for individuals. But traditions that made an ideology out of the concept of Oneness created a morality that denigrated or made unreal the individual self with its individual interests. Any worldview that denies either the reality or importance of the individuated self ends up defining virtue as selflessness, which is achieved through self-sacrifice. When renouncing self-interest is the spiritual path, we define the morality as renunciate. Renunciate moralities have neither eliminated nor diminished self-interest, but have often made its expression more hidden and thus corruptible. This chapter will show how the concept of Oneness is used by spiritual authorities to make their pronouncements unchallengeable, and therefore authoritarian. Those who attempt to communicate the experience of unity usually begin with a caveat on the limitations of words to capture it, and then proceed to describe it in these ways:

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Renunciate moralities have neither eliminated nor diminished self-interest, but have often made its expression more hidden and thus corruptible.

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This chapter will show how the concept of Oneness is used by spiritual authorities to make their pronouncements unchallengeable, and therefore authoritarian.

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