Jan Barendrecht on The Seneca Effect

From time immemorial, authorities (rulers and clerics) have done everything to increase wealth to enjoy the power extracted from that. Summarized as a class of people not bothered by any form of conscience. According to the saying "As people's wealth trickles up (to the authorities) while their (psycho/sociopathic) behavior trickles down", corruption becomes the uncrowned emperor. This mechanism is in full swing today - think arms industry, medical racketeering (over half of Western population has at least one chronic disease) and the "designed to addict" junk food industry. Hence religions became tools for enrichment as well, whether buying "forgiveness" via confession, next lives for a more meritorious life etc. and to the extent that for laymen the original intent of practices (wellbeing instead of (useless) wealth) became lost. The originals had in common that "the world" of every organism is experienced in a subject-object relationship and is exclusive for that organism (because 2 organisms can't fill the same space). The discovery of ancient "accidental" yogis, mystics and equivalents was that the subject can exist without such a relationship IOW singular. Philosophically a can of worms, which was circumvented by sayings like "the Tao that can be discussed isn't the Tao". The individual discovery that "subject" exists without subject-object relationship is accompanied by a sense of wellbeing that can't be attained in any other way so makes realizers far less vulnerable to authorities.