Blind belief in personal Gods rituals, pada pooja, Guru worships, mantras, and prayers belong to religion, not Spirituality or Adyathma.+

One of Sage Sankara’s missions was to wean people away from a ritualistic approach advocated by Mimamsakas and to project wisdom (Gnana) as the means of liberation in the light of Upanishad teachings.

Sage Sankara criticized severely the ritualistic attitude and those who advocated such practices. However, the orthodox texts that combined rituals with wisdom (jnana_karma_samucchaya) more in favour of the Mimamsaka position came into vogue, projecting Sage Sri, Sankara as the rallying force of the doctrine.

That is why 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 all through 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 the Self with the body is a 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.

The rituals mentioned in the karmakanda of the Vedas are sought to be negated in the jnanakanda which is also part of the same scripture. While the karmakanda enjoins upon you the worship of various deities and lays down rules for the same, the jnanakanda constituted by the Upanishads ridicules the worshipper of deities as a dim-witted person no better than a beast.

This seems strange, the latter part of the Vedas contradicting the former part. The first part deals throughout with karma while the second or concluding part is all about jnana. Owing to this difference, people have gone so far as to divide our scripture into two sections: the Vedas (that is the first part) to mean the karmakanda and the Upanishads (Vedanta) to mean the jnanakanda.

Sage Sankara said:- Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many Gods as you please, observe ceremonies, and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.

Sage Sankara gave religious, ritual, and dogmatic instruction to the masses but pure philosophy 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

Blind belief in personal Gods rituals, pada pooja, Guru worships, mantras, and prayers belong to religion, not Spirituality.

When the Self is formless then there is no need to do Pada Pooja (feet worship) the Gurus to get freedom. A Guru who preaches conduct as the means to freedom believes in birth, life, death, and the world as a reality, whereas the Advaitic Sage Sankara declares the world as unreal. Therefore, how actions performed in the unreal world can get moksha or freedom. Therefore, there is a need to know the fact that the ‘Self’ is not physical in order to understand assimilate and realize the truth beyond physicality.

Vedas bars human worship: ~

Translation 3

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal Prakriti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the Prakriti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time. ":~ (Yajur Veda 40:9.)

Then why worship and glorify the Gurus and Yogis (human form) in place of God when the Veda bars such activities and it also warns people who indulge in such activities are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time.

By worshiping the Gurus as Gods, the wisdom will not dawn. The person who indulges in such activities will not be able to cross the thrash of dualistic illusion. One has to understand, assimilate and realize the truth, which is beyond the form, time, and space. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar