People who stuck to orthodoxy never will be able to cross the prison of duality. Without crossing the prison of duality, Self-awareness is an impossibility. Thus Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana is necessary to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.
Even the arguments that religions have been followed since time immemorial makes no difference to them because if people have believed a false thing over thousands of years, the length of time does not prove it true.
People are misled because Advaitic Orthodoxy misinterpreted Sage Sankara and presented only the religious side of his teaching as the highest doctrine.
Adyatma is nothing to do with religious orthodox sect or creed and religious belief. Adyatma is pure spirituality. Knowledge of Atma is Adyatma. Advaita is Adyatma.
Adyatma is the knowledge of the truth beyond the form, time, and space. Bifurcate religion, yoga, and theoretical philosophy and based the truth on the Athma it is Adyatma.
Adyatma is based on the ultimate truth which is based on the Atma or Spirit, which is the Self.
Sage Sankara's Advaitic wisdom is pure spirituality or Adyathma noting to do with Advaitic orthodoxy.
The orthodoxy is based on rituals and mythical Gods and Karma. Advaitic wisdom of Sage Sankara is nothing to with Advaitic orthodoxy.
Remember:~Sage Sankara says: ~ Karma is not competent to remove ignorance without getting rid of the ignorance there is no possibility of liberation.
Sage
Sankara says: ~
Karma is not competent to remove ignorance, for it is
not opposed to it. It does not matter in what way we characterize ignorance,
whether as the absence of knowledge or as doubt or as erroneous knowledge. It is
always removable by knowledge, but not by action in any of its forms, for there
is no contradiction between ignorance and karma. (Commentary on
Brah.3-3-1 )
Taittiriya Vartika, verse-24: ~ There
is also another reason for rejecting this view. Karma involves duality in the form of means and end, doer and
deed. The perception of duality is ignorance. Further, it is only a person who
has a desire to perform karma.
Since he is ignorant of the non-dual Self, he thinks that there are objects
other than the Self which he should strive for and that there are persons for
whom he should suffer in his body. "He struggles desiring something for himself,
something else for his son, the third thing for his wife and so on and gets
involved in the cycle of births and deaths." (Brh. Up. Sankara's
Commentary, 4-4-12)
In short, karma presupposes desire, involves duality, and is, therefore, a
product of avidya. If so, how
can it destroy avidya, the root
cause of bondage, and thereby cause liberation?
You are being conditioned by the religious myth which has made you a non-thinker. Come out of the religious myth by realizing God in truth.
Let Advaitic wisdom annihilate ignorance (I) and reveal Soul, the Self the God in truth. Let your ears become deaf to the untruth propagated by the religion as a reality; enable you to realize the truth hidden by the ignorance (I). Let your eyes become blind to illusion to receive the Soul as the Self as it is in the midst of the dualistic illusion.
All the orthodox ideas were rejected by Sage Sankara. There is no need to indulge in rituals, in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman. There is no need to study philosophy, in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman then why you indulge in studying philosophy.
Sage Sankara pokes fun at ascetics and points out that all their austerities do not cause desires to go (Altar Flowers" Page 205, v.2 P.207 v.4)
Sage Sankara pointed out those rituals could in no way bring about wisdom, much less moksha.
Sage Sankara says the rewards of the rituals are not a matter of direct realization. Advaitic wisdom is based on personal realization.
The orthodox Advaitin believes that rituals alone would lead one to higher levels of attainment. Further, the deities would reward only those entitled to perform the rituals alone. The entitlement involved the caste, creed, and other parameters.
The scriptural authority and value of rituals are part of the Advaitic orthodoxy, which is meant for ignorant people.
The Advaitic wisdom of Sage Sankara is nothing to do with religion, caste, rituals, worship, yoga, and other practices. Therefore an obvious disparity between Sage Sankara‘s path of Gnana and the path of Karma. Path of Gnana is meant for the advanced seeker of truth and path of Karma is meant for the ignorant populace.
Even Sage Sankara appears and tells the orthodox people the path of orthodoxy is the path of ignorance they will not be able to drop their inherited samskara or conditioning, which they think is the only way to reach heaven and reap a happy life in the next life.
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. Also, 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 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.- (11- Adhyasa Bhashya)
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (10) - Ignorant fools, regarding sacrifices and humanitarian works as the highest, do not know any higher good. Having enjoyed their reward on the heights of heaven, gained by good works, they still remain in ignorance of the Atman the real God.
As a person, one performs rituals throughout his life. The person who performs rituals and aspires for rewards will view the world in which he exists as a reality. However, the Soul, the Self unborn eternal hidden by the world in which he exists. From the standpoint of the Soul, the world in which he exists is merely an illusion.
The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc. are therefore addressed to an ignorant person.
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (9) - Children, immersed in ignorance in various ways, flatter themselves, saying: We have accomplished life's purpose. Because these performers of karma do not know the Truth owing to their attachment, they fall from heaven, misery-stricken, when the fruit of their work is exhausted.
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (8) - Fools, dwelling in darkness, but wise in their own conceit and puffed up with vain scholarship, wander about, being afflicted by many ills, like blind men led by the blind.
Ish Upanishad declares: - Those people who have neglected the attainment of Self-knowledge and have thus committed suicide 10/11/12
The religious orthodox people who have neglected the attainment of Self-knowledge and have thus committed suicide, as it were, are doomed to enter those worlds after death.
This is a condemnation of people who do not try to attain Self-knowledge. They are, in a real sense, committing suicide, for what can be worse than being a slave to sense enjoyment, completely oblivious of the real purpose of life, which is to be one ’s, own master? :~ Santthosh Kumaar
