Sage Goudpada says: ~ The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upasana to people of lower and middling intellect, while jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.+

Swami Vivekananda said:~ “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own Soul.”

There is nothing more rational, more intelligible, and more undogmatic insights of Sage Sankara, who is to drop all theistic nonduality or Advaita, which is meant for those who are incapable and not receptive to realizing the ultimate truth or Brahman.

Sage Goudpada says: ~ The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upasana to people of lower and middling intellect, while jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.

According to Advaita Vedanta, the Veda addresses itself to two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know Brahman. Thus, the Purva mimam.sa, with its emphasis on the Karma kanda of the Vedas, is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. However, the Vedanta, with its emphasis on the Jnana kanda, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.

Upanishad says:~

Katha Upanishad: ~ This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books. It is attained by him alone whom it chooses. To such a one, Atman reveals its own form. (Katha Upanishad Ch-II -23-P-20)

Mundaka Upanishad: ~This Atman cannot be attained through the study of the Vedas, nor through intelligence, nor through much learning. He who chooses Ataman—by him alone is Atman attained. It is Ataman that reveals to the seeker its true nature. (3–page-70 Mundaka Upanishad Upanishads by Nikilanada)

When the Upanishads say:-

It is attained by him alone whom it chooses. To such a one, Atman reveals its own form. Then what is the use of indulging through our intelligence or our accumulated knowledge, when one is not chosen by the Self, which is the Soul, which is in the form of consciousness?

All the seekers of truth are chosen ones.

There is no need to study any philosophy in pursuit of truth because they take the seeker nearer to the truth, but they create more doubts and confusion.

The scriptures and the theories, and the teachings based on the ego are not a yardstick. Using them as a yardstick to understand and assimilate the truth will lead one towards the pursuit of arguments. 

The seeker of truth has to discover on his own the truth of his true existence by inquiring “What is mind?” and “What is the substance of the mind?” and “What is the source of the mind?” and move forward. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar

Spirituality is not theology. Advaita is not a philosophy but Advaita is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.+

Religious upbringing is a major cause that blocks one from realizing the Self hidden by ignorance.

The orthodox people have a narrow-minded outlook because they think that the religious samskaras they inherited from their forefathers as the ultimate truth.

The garbage of religious beliefs, dogmas superstition is confounded with the human imagination.

The great reality of the glory of the religious Gods is hyped and obscured by so much tinsel and commercialism.

Spirituality is not theology. Advaita is not a philosophy, but Advaita is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

The theistic (orthodoxy) Advaita is based on the dualistic perspective, but Advaita philosophy is based on the nondualistic perspective.

The theistic (orthodoxy) Advaita bifurcated from Advaitic philosophy. The theistic (dualistic) Advaita is meant for the ignorant populace.

In theology, everyone is entitled to his own view, i.e., what he likes; but in pursuit of the truth, this is not permissible. That which dupes most of the people is taking satisfaction for truth.

The seeker has to be aware of that which satisfies his feelings. "Felt" experience is no guide to the highest because one’s feelings may differ from others.

Theological thinkers say God is a perfect being, but they have never known God, never proved his existence; hence their ascription of perfection to Him is purely Self-imagined. If one has to test truth in the next world only, then there is no proof of the existence of the next world, other than it is mentioned in the doctrines.

The doctrine's truth is not the ultimate truth. The scriptures are being added from time to time. This process will go on. There is no final authority among them? One contradicts the other: duality reigns supreme.

Suppose one sees God. How is he to know that He is God? His mere statement is not enough. He must have proof; He must show that He is God.

It is impossible to prove the existence of God by any reasoning: one can only say "I believe. Belief is not the truth. “The most rational position is that: 'I do not know."

Every religion has its own idea of God, paradise, heaven, sin, and karma. But where people have a little thinking capacity, they begin to disbelieve through the contradictions of various contending orthodox claims and descriptions.

Unless one gives up the ideas of the idea of God, heaven, and hell, it is impossible to assimilate Nondualistic or Advaitic truth. Truth must be proved here and now, in this world, in this very life. Not in the next world and the next life.

The idea, as the existence of a personal God, heaven, hell, sin, and karma are mere imagination based on the false self (ego) within the false experience (waking).

When waking experience itself is false, then whatever one sees, knows, believes, and experiences is bound to be a falsehood. ~ Santthosh Kumaar

The individual’s experience of birth, life, death, and the world has nothing to do with the invisible Soul, the Self.+

The individual’s experience cannot be disputed, because the experience one went through was real to him; though that may not be real, from the absolute point of view, because the individual is part of the dualistic illusion or Maya.

The individual’s experience of birth, life, death, and the world has nothing to do with the invisible Soul, the Self, because the invisible Soul, the Self, is unborn and eternal.

The invisible Soul, the Self, is unborn and eternal because it is an ever-formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

The invisible Soul is hidden by the world in which you exist. It is hidden because the world in which you exist is merely an illusion created out of the invisible Soul, the Self, which is present in the form of consciousness.

Thus, your individual experience of birth, life, death, and the world is the dualistic illusion or Maya.

Remember:~

The dualistic illusion or Maya has no reality from the standpoint of the Soul, the Self, because the illusion and the reality are one, in essence. There is no scope for toe in the Advaitic reality.

The seeker has to make a distinction between the soulcentric view and the egocentric view of things.

The experience of birth, life, death, and the world is a reality within the dualistic illusion or Maya. The dualistic illusion appears as the waking or dream.

The waking experience is a parallel dream, and the dream is a parallel waking experience. The waking or dream (duality) disappears as deep sleep (nonduality). In deep sleep, there is neither the waking nor the dream.

The one that appears as waking, one that appears as a dream, and one that remains without the waking or dream is the invisible Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

Thus, all three states are nothing but an illusion created out of consciousness.

From the standpoint of the Soul, the Self, the three states are non-existent as a reality.

To the invisible and unborn Soul, the Self: ~

What are projection and retraction, what are the end and means; what are the failure and success of the invisible Soul, which is formless, timeless, and spaceless in its nature.

The illusory world that appears and merges back into its essence is not an appearance at all.

What is the knower, the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge; what is anything or nothing to the invisible Soul, which is ever formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

Knower, knowledge, object, thing, nothing, or any word one may utter is, after all, they are the word and words have meaning only within the illusion. Consciousness is ever-present in all three states, but as a person, one is unconscious of consciousness because he think the Self is their body.

When all-knowing, known, and knower are simultaneously mental as in the dream, what else is there to trouble about understanding them? Because one considers the waking experience as a reality, one is incapable of understanding and assimilating the Advaitic truth.

What is the distraction? What is the concentration, dullness, and delusion, happiness, and sorrow to the invisible Soul, which is ever actionless because it is ever formless, timeless, and spaceless?

As a person, one may be drawn to observe his body and the world, but the Gnani is not disturbed because he has realized his body and his experience of the world are made of consciousness.

The physical attributes have nothing to do with the invisble Soul, the Self wrongly; all the attributes belong to the ego, not the invisible Soul. Identifying the physical attribute with the invisible Soul is the cause of ignorance. :: ~ Santthosh Kumaar

By worshipping a God in human form, repeating mantras is like watering barren soil.+

By worshipping a God in human form, repeating mantras is like watering barren soil.

The seeker of truth should not waste life in empty formalities. Without realizing that the world in which he exists is an illusion, it is impossible to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana, or Atma Gnana.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says: ~It is only one amongst thousands of people who strive for spiritual salvation. Even amongst such seekers, it is only the rare person who gets to know “Self” correctly.’ (7.3)

Mundaka Upanishad:~ The rituals and the sacrifices described in the Vedas deal with lower knowledge. The sages ignored these rituals and went in search of higher knowledge. ... Such rituals are unsafe rafts for crossing the sea of samsara, of birth and death. Doomed to shipwreck are those who try to cross the sea of samsara on these poor rafts. Ignorant of their own ignorance, yet wise in their own esteem, these deluded men, Proud of their vain learning, go round and round Like the blind led by the blind.

How can you worship the Absolute? That implies two ~ the worshiper and the worshiped, whereas the Absolute is nondual. One can worship his idea of the Absolute only or realize his unity with it when he can’t worship it as apart.

Religious rites and rigid ceremonies were passed down from one generation to the next as a practice or set customs and tradition, and performed automatically with blind faith. Such worship based on the belief in God does not reach God.

Religious rites and ceremonies, yagnas and homa-havans, or any other forms of ritual, are meant for the ignorant populace.

Belief in God without knowing God in actuality holds the worshiper more firmly in the grip of ignorance.

All worship and the ceremonial rituals performed on the base of non-~Vedic Gods will not yield any fruits. Deeper self-search reveals the fact that the worshiper, the worship, and the worshiper and the world are merely an illusion created out of consciousness.

Religious rites and ceremonies, yagnas and homa-havans, or any other forms of ritual, are meant for the ignorant populace. In the Atmic path, the seeker has to discard what is not needed to realize the truth, which is beyond form, time, and space.

Religious rites and ceremonies, yagnas and homa-havans, or any other forms of ritual formal observance have long since set in.

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

Remember:~

How can you worship the Absolute? That implies two ~ the worshipper and the worshipped, whereas the Absolute is nondual. One can worship his idea of the Absolute only or realize his unity with it when he can’t worship it as apart.

The Upanishads say in effect that ~ If you believe that the invisible Soul, the Self, is one and God (Brahman) is another, you cannot understand Truth.

A Gnani is not opposed to God; he is not an atheist, but he wants God free from the imagination, as God is in truth, as he exists apart from human imaginations. Imagined Gods are not God in truth.

Gnani does not say God is not there; God is, but not as one imagines God. God is above all imaginations. God exists as truth. Hence, in the path of wisdom, do not use the word, God. It will be misunderstood. Thus, Brahman, which means the ultimate truth, is the right word.

Remember:~

God is the Supreme Being, the One eternal homogeneous essence, indivisible consciousness, and intelligence, which is beyond form, time, and space. To which the Sages describe it in a variety of ways through diverse words.

Bhagavad Gita: ~ ‘All those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires, they worship many gods. (7- Verse -20)

Only the path of wisdom leads the seeker of truth on his journey to the ultimate realization of the true nature of the Universal Essence, which is the Soul. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness.

Bhagavad Gita: 7: 19:~ "Such a man who has attained true knowledge, the knowledge of Self, the knowledge of Atman, worships Self as~ Atman (God) alone exists~ everything is Atman, there exists nothing except Atman. Such a man is extremely rare."

The Bhagavad Gita: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham ~ Brahman (God) is considered the all-pervading consciousness, which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (14.27).

When the Bhagavad Gita says, God is considered the all-pervading consciousness, which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material, then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness.

Lord Krishna says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the Self in truth." The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.

The dualistic worship of "God” is only for the ignorant populace. The God in truth is only Atman, the Self. In reality, there is no duality, no differentiation. Only Atman exists.

Remember:~

Upanishads say in effect that: ~ If you believe that the ‘the Soul, the Self is one and God (Brahman) is another, you cannot understand Truth.

The religion preaches that God is one and the ways to God are many. It simply tries to lead them to darkness with its dogma and idea of many Gods, which is apart from the Self.

People all over the world in the past and present have accepted the idea of the existence of God. The fear of God injected by the religion was the root cause of worship, superstitions, and dogmas. The religious belief is passed on to the populace from one generation to the next.

Realizing the single stuff of which this universe in which you exist is made, is Truth realization, or Self-realization, or God-realization.

No one has ever seen God by practicing religion or yoga or indulging in glorifying the religious God and Goddesses because God exists prior to form, time, and space.

The form, time, and space cease to exist as a reality when wisdom dawns. Thus, the Gods and Gurus have no place in the domain of the Advaitic reality. Advaita is the nature of the Soul, which is the real God. Thus, Self-realization is the only way to God-realization.

By worshipping the religious Gods and Gurus, one will not get Self-realization or God-realization. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar

Q: ~ Sir, I don't understand this...The world is a reality within the waking experience, but the waking experience is merely an illusion.

SK: ~ “The universe in which we exist is present only in waking experience. The waking experience (duality) appears and disappears as deep sleep (nonduality).

The waking experience is a parallel dream and the dream is a parallel waking experience. The Self is neither the waking entity nor the Self is the dream entity, but the Self is the Soul, which witnesses the coming and going of the three states. The Soul, the innermost Self, is nothing to do with you and your experience of the world because it is ever formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

The world in which you exist is merely an illusion created out of the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

A person, who stamped his foot on the ground to refute to show the world, is real, ignores that in the dream he would do exactly the same--stamp his dream foot on the ground and assert it to be real.

The look of an object will depend upon the medium through which the observer views it. In fact, our mental and intellectual conditions determine the three states, observed and experienced. The commoner viewing the three states will see differently from a Gnani viewing the same three states. Each one interprets the three states that they see in terms of their existing knowledge. The commoner sees everything based on the ego, therefore, he experiences the birth, life, death, and the world as a reality, whereas a Gnani sees everything as consciousness and he is fully aware of the fact that, there is no second thing that exists other than the Soul or consciousness. Thus, all the egocentric (religious) adulteration has to be bifurcated to realize the ultimate truth, which is beyond form, time, and space.

The world is both real and unreal. It is real because it is a manifestation of consciousness, but is unreal, in the sense, that it is not absolute and eternal like consciousness itself.

People's approach is more practical, and they stuck with the reality of the world, they take it as real. That is why all the confusion.

That is why Sage Sankara says: ~ VC-63. Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation by the mere utterance of the word Brahman? — It would result merely in an effort of speech.

65. As a treasure hidden underground requires (for its extraction) competent instruction, excavation, the removal of stones and other such things lying above it and (finally) grasping, but never comes out by being (merely) called out by name, so the transparent Truth of the ‘Self’, which is hidden by Maya. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar

You, the world in which you exist belong to physical awareness. Physical awareness is not Self-awareness.+

You, the world in which you exist, belong to physical awareness. Physical awareness is not Self-awareness. Self-awareness is Atmic awareness.

Physical awareness is dualistic, and Atmic awareness is nondualistic.

Realize, the world in which you exist is created out of a single stuff. That single stuff is the consciousness. Knowledge of the single stuff is Self-knowledge.

When firm conviction of Self-knowledge becomes firmer in the subconscious, then Self-awareness arises on its own.

When the invisible Soul, the Self, remains in its own nondual awareness, then: ~

What is this body?

What is the ego?

What is this world?

What is the 'I'?

What is the duality?

What is existence, nonexistence, unity, or duality?

What needs us to say more?

Noting from the invisible Soul because whatever seems to emanate from it is non-different from itself.

There is no second thing other than the invisible Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. One should not mistake the Self (Soul) for the ‘I’.

Those who assert that the world is a reality are still at an elementary stage of preliminary analysis.

The world is a reality within the waking experience, but the waking experience itself is a dualistic illusion or Maya. Similarly, the dream world was a reality within the dream experience.

The dream became unreal when the waking took place. In the same way, the waking becomes unreal when Advaitic wisdom dawns.  : ~ Santthosh Kumaar

The mind (universe) and the invisible Soul (Self) are one in essence ultimately. +

What is the duality to the invisible Soul, the Self, which is ever nondual? The invisible  Soul is ever nondual because it is a formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

What is relative? What is absolute happiness and misery to the invisible  Soul, which is ever devoid of thought and activity?

If anything has a meaning, it is only in duality. Happiness and sorrow are the nature of duality, which is the mind, their differences; therefore, the illusory from the standpoint of the formless Soul, which is the ultimate reality.

What is an illusion? What is ignorance? What are birth, life, and death? What is this world? What is an attachment and what is detachment to the invisible Soul, the Self, which is ever formless, timeless, and spaceless?

The mind (universe) and the invisible Soul (Self) are one in essence ultimately. 

All argument about consciousness never touches it. The invisible Soul is not the ego in this particular body, but the principle that holds the whole physical existence (universe), which contains everyone and everything known and unknown.

All words have no place, and thoughts cannot reach. Even the thought of the Soul or consciousness is just illusory and contradictory because the thought and words belong to the world of duality.

What is activity or inactivity, liberation, and bondage to the invisible and unborn  Soul, the  Self, which is ever immutable and indivisible?

There is no division into nations, races, and colors of kinds of men in wisdom. It is not enough to, but one must always see the invisible Soul,    as the Self and the witness of all the three states, and always realize and practice it.

Some people get glimpses of truth and lose it; so it must be established. Such fixidity is the goal.

What are instructions and scriptural injunctions? What is a disciple and the Guru? What indeed is the object of life for the invisible  Soul, which is absolute and free from limitation?

Life is within the world. The world is within the waking or dream, the illusory limitation. 

When there is no second other than the Soul (consciousness), then what is there for the invisible Soul, the Self, to attain? But when one thinks the Self is physical, then there are various things he will want to get and so be troubled by their lack. Hence, don’t wrongly imagine the Self to be the body. : ~Santthosh Kumaar