Advatic wisdom of Sage Sankara is pure Spirituality. Advaitic wisdom of Sage Sankara is nothing to do with religion.+

Advatic wisdom is pure Spirituality.  Advaitic wisdom has nothing to do with religion as it is far beyond the tenets and principles of religion. 

Religion is regarded as sacred and real by the common people, by the wise as false, and by the political class as useful.  

Sage Sankara’s whole wisdom can be summed up in one sentence, ‘There is nothing else but Brahman. He says that the Absolute Existence, Absolute Knowledge, and Absolute Bliss are real. 

The universe is not real. He says that Brahma and Atman are one. The ultimate and Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one though that appears as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the Self is real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances. 

Genuine philosophy must be independent of religion, that in Sage Sri, Sankara himself the Saguna Brahman or a personal God is only a part of the phenomenal (if not illusory) world, and the Nirguna Brahman is the only reality and has nothing to do with religion.  

Sage Sankara says: ~ “The exercise in discrimination between real and unreal and renunciation of the false is real meditation, then why you are indulging in other types of meditation.  

Krishna tells Arjuna: ~   “Knowledge of both matter (mind) and Spirit (Soul) is the True knowledge. (Gita, Chap.XII)

Everyone is holding some Gurus and their teaching or their accepted truth. And they use their Guru's teaching as a yardstick because they emotionally stuck to their devotion to their Gurus.

A true seeker is not content with the knowledge of spiritual realities based on hearsay... he insists on the direct knowledge."

That is why Sage Sankara says in the commentary on Vedanta sutra that what is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead a person to the final goal. On the contrary, such acceptance will result only in evil, in something detrimental to our spiritual progress.

A scholar is proud that he has accumulated so much knowledge; Gnani is humble that he knows no more.

Many people have been deluded and fallen prey to the false knowledge as Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana and only a few can grasp the truth, which is hidden by the illusory form, time, and space.

There is no need for renunciation of worldly activities. It means the internal renunciation of ignorance, which is the cause of experiencing the illusory world in which we exist as a reality.

Renouncing the worldly life and accepting sanyasa or monkhood means the incapacity to think deeper, and the impotency to inquire and reason. 

People speak of getting rid of conditioning or samskara but they are unaware of the fact that the universe in which they exist is the product of the inborn samskara or conditioning.  

Ignorance is the cause of the inborn samskara or conditioning, which is present as ‘I’ or ‘I AM’. 

The real Moksha or freedom is to realize the fact that ‘I’ consciousness is mere physical awareness. Physical awareness is present in the form, time, and space. The form, time, and space are present in the form of the mind. 

The mind is present in the form of the universe. The universe appears as a waking or dream (duality) and disappears as deep sleep (nonduality)     

Physical awareness is not Self-awareness. The Self –awareness is when the formless Soul or consciousness remains aware of its own non-dual true nature.

A permanent view of the world as an illusion can come only after Soul-centric reasoning; such knowledge cannot change. Where the seeker who is sufficiently sharp could grasp the unreal nature of the world by Soul-centric reasoning alone.  To know the whole truth, one must know the whole universe, otherwise, he gets only a half-truth. 

 Sage  Goudpada: ~ To establish the truth of Nonduality by sheer reasoning alone. He begins by defining "What is real?" "What is unreal?" etc, because that is the right way to discuss or teach. People must first know what they are talking about. (Manduka Karika)

Religious Gods are based on blind belief.  Gods based on blind belief are God in truth.  

Religious God cannot be considered as the cause of the universe because the Soul, the Self is the cause of the universe. 

Without the Soul, the world in which you exist ceases to exist, which means the religious God is dependent on the Soul for their existence. God in truth is the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

Even The Bhagavad Gita says: ~ 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.   

Even Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God in truth) is in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself. 

Even 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) 

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad declares:~ "He who worships the deities as entities entirely separate from the Self does not know the truth. For the Gods, he is like a pasu (beast)". (1. 4. 10)

That is why Sage Sankara:~ VC-v6~ Let erudite scholars quote all the scripture, let Gods be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal Gods be propitiated---yet, without the realization of one‘s identity with the Self, there shall be no liberation for the individual, not  even in the lifetimes of a hundred Brahmas put together

All the accumulated egocentric knowledge is inadequate or useless in unfolding the mystery of the mind or universe.

The ‘I’ is inborn samskara or conditioning, and because of this inborn samskara or conditioning one has accepted the ‘I’ as the  Self, he is ignorant of the fact that the ‘I’ itself is the cause of ignorance. Because of this ‘I’   he has accepted illusion as a reality.   

There is a need to realize ‘What is this ‘I’?’  in actuality. Without knowing ‘what is this ‘I’?’ in actuality it is impossible to unfold the hidden truth which is hidden by 'I'

Until you hold the ‘Self ‘as the ‘I’ you will never be able to get Self-realization.  ‘I’ hides the Soul, which is the Self. ‘

'I’ is ignorance.

‘I’ is the duality.

‘I’ is form, time, and space.

‘I’ is the universe.

‘I’ is the waking.

‘I’ is the dream.

‘I’ is the illusion.

‘I’ is the experience of birth, life, death, and the world.

But  remember:~

Without the ‘I’ there is no ignorance.

Without the ‘I’ there is no duality.

Without the ‘I’ there is no form, time, and space.

Without the ‘I’ there is no universe.

Without the ‘I’ there is no waking.

Without the ‘I’ there is no dream.

Without the ‘I’ there is no illusion.

Without the ‘I’ there is no experience of birth, life, death, and the world.

The ‘I’ hides the truth of the whole. The ‘I’ hides the truth of true existence.

That is why Ashtavakra Gita 16:10:~ If you desire liberation, but you still say ‘I,’, if you feel the ‘Self’ is the ‘I’, you are not a wise man or a seeker. You are simply a man who suffers.

Bhagavad Gita: ~ The permanent is always there, only the transient ‘I’ comes and goes. (2.18)

It is time to discard the ‘I’. Never use the word ‘I’ or I AM for the Self.   : ~ Santthosh Kumaar