The karma belongs to Advaitic orthodoxy. The Advaitic orthodoxy is a path meant for the ignorant populace.+

Q:~ That intense urge, ache, or yearning... is it to come from within or by a prompting of consciousness or from an external stimulus or by the consequence of one's past karma?

Santthosh Kumaar:~ When one finds the religion and yoga are inadequate and useless in quenching his thirst and when one feels there is something higher is there to realize then the inner urge sprouts on its own and his journey to the higher will start and end in realizing the Advaitic reality, which is hidden by the illusory form, time, and space (I).

Advaita is Spirituality. Advaita has nothing to do with any religion or sect. Advaita is the universal truth. Advaita is the nature of the invisible Soul; the Self is God in truth.

Ish Upanishad declares: - Those people who have neglected the attainment of Self-knowledge and have thus committed suicide

Sage Sankara gave religious, ritual, or dogmatic instruction to the ignorant populace, but the Advaitic wisdom only to the few who could rise to it. Hence, the interpretation of his writings by commentators is often confusing because they mix up the two viewpoints. Thus, they may assert that ritual is a means of realizing Brahman, which is absurd.

There are two kinds of audiences

The first: ~ the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of karma, ritual sacrifices, and prayers

The second: ~ the more advanced seeker who seeks to realize the truth of their true existence. The religions of yoga and meditation are meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way.

The path of wisdom is meant for those who wish to go beyond form, time, and space.

Sage Sankara: - Action (karma) cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance. Knowledge does verily destroy ignorance as light destroys deep darkness. -Atma Bodha

The karma belongs to Advaitic orthodoxy. The Advaitic orthodoxy is a path meant for the ignorant populace.

The orthodox people believe that their experience of birth, life, death, and rebirth, and the world as a reality, whereas the Sage Sankara declares the world is an illusion.

If the world is in an illusion, the birth, life, death, and rebirth that happen within the unreal world are bound to be an illusion. Therefore, the karma performed within the illusory world has no value.

Sage Sankara says: ~ The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards are therefore addressed to an ignorant person.

Adhyasa Bhashya of Sage Sankara:~ (11) As regards the rituals, Sage Sankara says, the person who performs rituals and aspires for rewards will view himself in terms of the caste into which he is born, his age, the stage of his life, his standing in society, etc. In addition, he is required to perform rituals throughout his life. However, the Self has none of those attributes or tags. Hence, the person who superimposes all those attributes on the changeless, eternal Self and identifies Self with the body is confusing one for the other; and is, therefore, an ignorant person. The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc., are therefore addressed to an ignorant person.

Adhyasa Bhashya of Sage Sankara:~ (11.1) This ignorance (mistaking the body for Self) brings in its wake a desire for the well-being of the body, aversion for its disease or discomfort, fear of its destruction, and thus a host of miseries(anartha). This anartha is caused by projecting karthvya(“doer” sense) and bhokthavya (object) on the Atman. Sankara calls this adhyasa. The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc., are, therefore, he says, addressed to an ignorant person.

Adhyasa Bhashya of Sage Sankara:~ (11.2) In short, a person who engages in rituals with the notion “I am an agent, doer, thinker”, according to Sage Sankara, is ignorant, as his behavior implies a distinct, separate doer/agent/knower; and an object that is to be done/achieved/known. That duality is avidya, an error that can be removed by vidya.

Adhyasa Bhashya of Sage Sankara: ~ (12) Sage Sankara affirming his belief in one eternal unchanging reality (Brahman) and the illusion of plurality, drives home the point that Upanishads deal not with rituals but with the knowledge of the Absolute (Brahma vidya) and the Upanishads give us an insight into the essential nature of the Self which is identical with the Absolute, the Brahman.

Sage Sankara: ~ Atman, the Self is verily Brahman (God in truth), being equanimous, quiescent, and by nature absolute Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss. Atman is not the body that is non-existence itself. This is called true Knowledge by the wise.

Everyone’s inner work is on. The invisible Soul is the Self. The Soul, the inner Guru guides us all till we get the stillness of its Advaitic true nature. It is the Soul which is in ignorance it is the Soul that has to wake from the sleep of ignorance.

Katha Upanishad says: ~ This Atman is attained by him alone whom It chooses. (II -23-P-20)

Thus, those who have taken the path of wisdom are chosen ones. The chosen one will get the grace of the Soul, the inner Guru.

The path of wisdom is the Soulcentric path, whereas all other paths are egocentric. All egocentric paths lead to hallucination.

The invisible Soul, the Self, reveals ‘what is real’ and ‘what is unreal” when the seeker is receptive and ready.

Sage Sankara:~ Actions(Karma) help to purify the mind, but they do not, by themselves, contribute to the attainment of Reality. The attainment of the Reality is brought about only by Self-Inquiry and not in the least by even ten million acts. (11)

Sage Sankara:~ A firm conviction that Brahman alone is Real and the phenomenal world is unreal is known as discrimination between the Real and the unreal. (20)

Sage Sankara:~ VC Let erudite scholars quote all the scripture, let Gods be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal Gods be propitiated---yet, without the realization of one‘s identity With the Self, there shall be no liberation for the individual, not even in the lifetimes of a hundred Brahmas put together (verses-6)

Sage Sankara:~ Neither sacred baths nor any amount of charity nor even Hundreds of pranayamas* can give us the knowledge about our own Self. The firm experience of the nature of the Self is seen to proceed from inquiry along the lines of the salutary advice of the wise. (13)

Sage Sankara:~ They have crossed the dreadful ocean of (embodied) existence through their own efforts and without any (personal) motives; they help others to cross it. (37)  : ~ SantthoshKumaar