For the religious people rituals and worship are important than the scholastic and esoteric path of wisdom shown by Sage Sankara.
By worshipping Gods with form and attributes, repeating mantras is like watering barren soil. The seeker of truth should not waste life in empty formalities. Without realizing the world in which he exists is merely an illusion it is impossible to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.
First, realize what God supposed to be in actuality. Without knowing what god supposed to be in actuality according to your own scriptures what the use of loving God or worshipping God?
Real God is not a religious God. Religious Gods are mythical Gods based on blind faith or belief. Belief based Gods are a myth.
Mythological stories are a myth. Whatever is based on myth is merely a superstition. Mythology was introduced in the past for the ignorant masses. It has to be discarded as one progresses in his spiritual advancement.
Mythology breeds superstition, blind belief, and senseless rituals, and most irrational and gives them a divine outlook.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:~ "He who worships the deities as entities entirely separate from him does not know the truth. For the Gods, he is like a pasu (beast)". (1. 4. 10)
Bible says: ~ “God is a Spirit, and they that worship God must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24)”,
The Spirit is the root element of the universe. The Spirit is present in the form of the Soul, the innermost Self. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. From the Spirit, the universe comes into existence. In the Spirit, the universe resides. And into the Spirit, the universe is dissolved. The Spirit is the parent of all that is there is.
Religion can never make you know God because it propagates the belief as God. Only an intense urge to know what God supposed to be in truth can make you realize God.
The Soul, the ‘Self is the Infinite God.
The Soul is the Self. The Soul is God in truth, which is present in the form of consciousness. God in truth is the fullness of consciousness without the illusory division of form, time, and space. Therefore, there is nothing apart from it.
God in truth is Self-evident. God in truth is not established by extraneous proofs. It is not possible to deny God in truth because God in truth is the very essence of the one who denies it. God is the basis of all kinds of knowledge, presuppositions, and proofs. God in truth is hidden by the illusory universe in which you exist, the God in truth is without the universe in which you exist.
The Vedas confirms God is Atman (Spirit), the Self.
Yajurveda – chapter- 32: ~ God is Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions.
Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God) is present in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.
People, who worship the belief of God, are hallucinating that they become one with such God.
Vedas itself says: May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman? Thus, to know the real God Self-realization is necessary. Self-realization is God-realization. Self-realization itself is real worship.
Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the Self. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)
How can you worship God? That implies two ~ the worshipper and the worshiped, whereas God is nondual. One can worship his idea of God only or realize his unity with it when he can’t worship it as apart.
When Upanishads and Vedas declare that, “God in truth is present in the form of the Athma, and God is indeed Athma itself” then why accept another God in place of the Atman or worship other than the Atman.
God is the Supreme Being the One eternal homogeneous essence, indivisible consciousness, and intelligence, which is beyond the form, time, and space. To which the Sages describe 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."
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 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. : ~
Santthosh Kumaar
