Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana cannot be surmised by merely reading the Vedas and Upanishads.
Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana arises when one indulges in deeper discrimination between the real and unreal.
Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana annihilates all ignorance. Without the Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana Advaitic Self -awareness is impossible.
Orthodoxy unanimously holds chief means of attaining Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is sannyasa, which means the renunciation of all action and worldly desires, to be an essential element of spiritual contemplation.
Nevertheless, indifference to practical life within the practical world, control of senses, eagerness to attain salvation, places, and time without distraction, and other factors are necessary, in the path of orthodoxy. But in the path of wisdom or reason, the sannyasa or monkhood is a great obstacle because the sannyasa and the world are merely an illusion from the standpoint of the Soul, the Self.
People who believe the sannyasa or monkhood as the means to acquire Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana are taken the wrong path.
The orthodox view is based on the false self (ego) within the false experience (waking) because the orthodoxy holds the experience of birth, life, death, and the world (waking) as reality. Those who attained the monastic knowledge are unfit to acquire Self -knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.
The Monastic path is the path of ignorance because it is based on the false Self within the illusory universe or Maya.
Remember:~
Traditionally, religious people are so entangled in orthodox religiosity; it is very difficult for them to free themselves from narrow-minded prejudices and dogmas and superstitions. These educated orthodox people are more ignorant than illiterate. They strongly stuck to their inherited orthodox baggage meant for the ignorant populace. Even though their own sage has said that orthodoxy meant for the ignorant populace they ignore and they are like blind led by another blind follow the inherited blind belief.
Sage Sankara clearly indicates in Viveka Chudamani (2) that the Knower of the Atman (A Gnani) "bears no outward mark of a holy man" (Stanza 539).
Most Orthodox scriptural scholars are ignorant in the guise of Gnanis.
One of Sage Sankara’s missions was to wean people away from the ritualistic approach advocated by Mimamsakas and to project wisdom (jnana) 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 texts that combined rituals with wisdom (jnana_karma_samucchaya) more in favor of the Mimamsaka position came into vogue, projecting Sankara as the rallying force of the doctrine.
Sage Sankara:~ Loud speech, the profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to Liberation."
Mundaka Upanishads: ~ So-called spiritual pundits and learned are called children because a child takes whatever it thinks as truth. The question never occurs to children “Is what I have seen or thought real truth?" (P.334 line 9)
The scriptures mastery, the force of religious merit--none of these lead to the realization of that Ultimate Truth or Brahman. The ultimate truth is revealed in the clear understanding and realization of ‘what is truth and ‘what is the untruth. When one realizes the untruth (universe) is created out of single stuff, Self-awareness rises in the midst of duality exposing the unreal nature of the form, time, and space.
An adherent of the orthodox philosopher may say his philosophy teaches so and so", another man may object and say “No, his religious philosophy teaches such and such." Thus, they may go on uttering contradictions in the name of philosophy. True philosophy deals only with the appeal to facts, not theories.
Where scriptures and authorities do not agree with the reason, the seeker of truth must reject them.
How is one to know that the scriptures are true? The seeker has to look into the facts, for proof of what has the worship of God done for the people! When a tsunami occurred in Japan the God did not save the believers of Japan. Thus, God saves the one who prays such an argument is of no value in pursuit of truth.
People believe scripture is infallible, but deeper Self-search reveals the fact that they are the mere book of words. The words are a mere expression of thoughts. Then it is impossible to see if the scripture-writers thoughts are founded in fact or not.
The fallacy of orthodoxy’s appeal to scripture lies in the varying and conflicting interpretations of the same scripture that different men feel entitled to give or hold.
The scriptures are for the ignorant masses, who wholly accept the practical life within the practical world as it presents itself. Gnana is for those who have begun to realize that things are not what they seem.
Where scriptures and authorities do not agree with the reason, the seeker of truth must reject them.
Scriptural knowledge is conceptual divisions invented by teachers of philosophy by their excessive analysis.
All these concepts are a great obstacle in the pursuit of truth. Why should confusion created, and then explained away? Fortunate is the man who does not lose himself in the labyrinths of philosophy but goes straight to the source from which they all arise:~Santthosh Kumaar
