THE RENOUNCINGS

The fullness of this Teaching should  be poured into a vessel free from old wine. Students must strive diligently to lessen the old to make way for the new. Assumptions from past studies or indoctrination should be held up to scrutiny in the light of the new revelation. Many and varied are the deceptions accepted as common knowledge among various religious and cultural groups. For Christians, this means giving up the false notions learned in childhood and the fake traditions taken from the inauthentic bible and fairy tale stories and ideas about Jesus. Included in this mass of misinformation is the false idea that Jesus was celibate because sexuality is not congruent with holiness, that meat eating is okay, that woman are less than men, that God practices human sacrifice to save his children with his son's blood, that God is an old man sitting on a throne, and so on. For Buddhists it entails giving up the idea that Sidhartha Guatama was a real buddha rather than possibly a decadent prince with a good public relations campaign, that celibacy is holy, that begging is good, that woman are inferior, that meat is okay to eat if you don't kill it yourself, that Indian culture is better than other ones, and so on. For students of Samael Aun Weor it means giving up the concept that meat eating is crucial and that vegetarians are hypocrites and pharisees, and that the Bible is a great Gnostic book written by gnostics 400 years after Jesus, and so on. For Raw Fooders and rejecters of certain types of vegan food it means rethinking what good food is, what real health is. For guru worshippers or darshan devotees, it means recognizing the limitations of human incarnation and respecting but not overly revering religious teachers, their photos, artifacts, or physical presence, especially those whose own testimony or convoluted lofty speech is their only claim to enlightenment. Thus one should be free and clear of false tradition, renouncing the following:

 
• I renounce the false forms and stories of Jesus, Buddha and other spiritual leaders that I have been taught or absorbed indirectly in my past, or which are upheld by my culture or subculture. 
• I renounce the false diets, eating norms, and lifestyles of my childhood, culture, and those perpetuated by various sects and persuasions of my past.
• I renounce the false and inferior view about woman and about outsiders and foreigners upheld in so many sects and peoples.
• I renounce the false scriptures and oral traditions promoted by various sects, with their superstitions, fairy tales, anti-science orientation and outmoded social stances. 
• I renounce the false ethics and morality perpetuated by those who consider themselves religious or moral, so often based on outmoded cultures or hypocritical unobtainable ideals.
• I renounce all the silly notions of sexuality, homosexuality, celibacy, monagamy, polygamy and other sexual viewpoints upheld or condemned by various cultures in various ages, and I renounce any sexual interaction with children or other innocents which is strongly condemned in this Path.
• I renounce the false accusations and quibblings and finger pointing engaged in by sectarians of all persuasions, as well as the all too human propensity to criticize leaders, invade their privacy, and to look for ways to discredit them or slander them during the waning of inordinate affection for them.
• In conculsion, I renounce all the cultural assumptions, mental conditionings, expectations, and worldviews that come from growing up in a particular society or religion and I will keep an open but discerning mind so that I might continue to deepen my endowment in Gnosis everlasting.